Founded by former Manhattan residents, Habitat for Hamtramck is a grassroots nonprofit organization that renovates houses in Detroit's Hamtramck with the purpose of donating them to people who can further bolster development of the local community.
Ian and Andrew Perrotta, twin brothers who graduated from Manhattan High School, are currently in their final days of attending the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg. They decided to donate houses in Detroit after watching ABC's 20/20 episode on the economic downturn and Detroit's plummeting housing market. Learning that property in the area could be purchased for as low as $100, the brothers saw Detroit's potential to become a fertile ground for a community project.
The Perrottas visited Detroit and purchased five properties for $1,400. Currently, they are finishing their final exams and planning to move to Detroit near the beginning of June.
The brothers have already collected about $1,400 in donations and gathered a team of volunteers from all over the country.
"We already have a number of people who stand behind the cause and believe in it enough to donate their time and money," said Ian, director of the Habitat for Hamtramck.
Ahmad Abdul, a graduate from K-State who resides in Manhattan, has known the Perrottas since high school. He joined the Habitat for Hamtramck initiative, helping increase awareness about the effort.
Abdul joined the Peace Corps and is scheduled to leave for Moldova this summer. Instead of driving his car to Kansas City, Mo. to the airport, he is planning to ride a bike in support of the brothers' project. The bike ride is part of Abdul's initiative to gain local support and media attention for the effort. He is planning to set out from Manhattan at the beginning of June.
"I am just an average person promoting something," Abdul said.
While the Perrottas made only one visit to Detroit, they launched an extensive advertising and fundraising campaign over the Internet.
"This will probably be the summer of Web 3.0," Ian said.
Allowing return to a small community, Web 3.0 should lead people to "take back their content and make up their own minds about what they want," Ian said.
Comparing a project that lacks representation on the Internet to diving without scuba equipment, Ian said nothing could be accomplished without the Internet today.
The Perrottas launched their online advertising effort with a story on the CNN's iReport. They also created a Web site (www.habitatforhamtramck.org), a blog and www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com and Twitter pages for the project. All of the latter can be accessed through the main Web site for the Habitat for Hamtramck.
Recently, the brothers have spiced up their advertising efforts, issuing a challenge to Stephen Colbert to give an unknown entity the so-called "Colbert Bump."
If Colbert helps the habitat to raise five times its original goal of $70,000, the Perrottas promised to name one of the renovated houses "The Stephen Colbert House" and paint Colbert's portrait on the house's side. While Colbert has yet to accept the challenge, the Perrottas hope that their efforts will not remain unnoticed.
"I believe that he would understand that this is for a good cause, and it is clever enough [and] is a unique challenge that has never been done," Ian said.
On Monday night, April 20, the Perrottas organized the "Habitat for Hamtramck vs. Stephen Colbert Challenge Awareness Concert" at the University of Pittsburg-Greensburg. They encouraged the attendees to sign a petition for Colbert to accept the challenge.
While the organization is well on its way of gaining support, the Perrottas have yet to crystallize their plans for donating renovated houses.
"When my biggest problem is giving away the house, I will look into determining that more closely," Ian said.
Currently, the brothers plan for an open admission of applications, submitted by people and families who can write a detailed proposal on how they would serve the community and how getting one of the free, renovated houses would foster their community involvement.
"We are a couple of guys trying to foster a sense of community," Ian said. "If we do a good to someone, they can focus their passion on serving others. If this idea catches on, it makes a better place to live and can lead to a return to the sense of community that has been absent in the country for a number of years, if not decades."
1 comments