A faith-based non-profit is receiving $15,000 from Broome County to help the needy stay in their homes.
County Executive Jason Garnar joined Impact Project’s founder Jim Willard outside one of the houses the organization recently renovated in Conklin.
The Impact Project is a volunteer-based organization that provides major home repairs for low income, handicapped, and elderly homeowners.
In December 2017, the group put a new roof on the home of Hazel Swaim and did some deck repair and landscaping.
The Impact Project purchases its materials at a discount from area suppliers.
Nevertheless, Willard says his organization has been struggling to raise money and has had to curtail its efforts over the past couple of years.
“We take in 4 to 5 hundred applications a year and we’re stacked up about 100 behind us. We’re sifting through them as we speak so that late this summer, sometime early fall, we’re hitting the ground running. So as we say at the Impact Project, “game on”, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Since its start in 2004, the Impact Project has completed 100 repairs with the help of 3,000 volunteers.
The $15,000 came from the county’s Small Communities Fund.
Willard says he hopes to be able fix up 4 to 5 homes with that money starting in the Fall.
Meanwhile, it’s next already planned project will take place on June 14th when staff here at
NewsChannel 34 will join members of the Binghamton Rumble Ponies and City Church to do repairs and landscaping for the Arner Family on Mason Avenue in Binghamton.
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