More Family Success Stories Contact: Homeowner Relations (650) 568-7322 housinginterest @peninsulahabitat.org Home Family Success Stories The Ball-Weaver Family Home: A Place to Hang Family Photographs Stacy Ball-Weaver grew up traveling between Fort Lauderdale, FL and Daly City, CA as a child. To this day, all it takes is a glimpse of Sign Hill and of the "SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO THE INDUSTRIAL CITY" letters to tell her that she's home. Yet "home" in San Mateo County had always meant moving to smaller and smaller apartments to avoid rising rent costs and working while a babysitter watched her granddaughter, nine month old Xiana, who she has guardianship of. Despite these things, Ball-Weaver continued to believe that "home" was the community where her children's friends lived, where she could visit her favorite parks, and where her life had settled. But now, "home" also means moving for the last time. It means coming to a place where she can finally unpack all those boxed up photographs of her children and grandchildren; where she can punch nails in the walls till her arm gets tired of hanging, and where she can come in the door after work, look at all the pictures and certificates of her family, and know that she never has to take them down again Ball-Weaver is a candidate for a Peninsula Habitat home in South San Francisco, which will be completed at the end of February. The act of building a home is never easy, and for Peninsula Habitat homeowners it becomes especially meaningful through 500 hours of sweat equity required to qualify for a Peninsula Habitat home. Ball-Weaver says it was difficult beyond her imagination, "but what Peninsula Habitat is asking is a blessing: that you get to be a part of your home's construction in a way that most people never will be." Ball-Weaver's children - Kaylah, 17, Benjamin, 16, Korlen, 11 - will always share Ball-Weaver's success, and she teaches them that "everything is within your reach as long as you are willing to work hard for it."1 "My children participated in a lot of the building," said Ball-Weaver affectionately. She recounts stories of her daughter teaching other volunteers how to perform a task, her son taking something heavy from another volunteer and asking "where do you want me to put this?" "People on the job site asked me 'How do you get these teenagers out here every week?' when really it would be my kids asking me on Friday 'Are we working tomorrow?'" said Ball-Weaver. "They never wavered or questioned, and now they gained a sense of their own pride about the house." Although Ball-Weaver has finished her 500 hours of sweat equity, she can't stay away from the site and still spends some Saturdays volunteering with Peninsula Habitat. Ten years ago, Ball-Weaver thought she would never be able to own a home in San Mateo County. Five years ago, she heard about Peninsula Habitat. For three and a half years after that, she checked the website twice a week before work to see when they might be building in South San Francisco. She's finishing up her classes about home ownership, insurance and budgeting. Now Ball-Weaver looks forward to not just being at home, but at last, to owning her home.