"Meatball Madness: Can perfecting your meatball recipe help support Habitat for Humanity?"

Contest: May 19, 2024 | 1-3pm

Location: Lyon St. Bar & Grill

72 Lyon St., Amsterdam, NY, USA

Today is the day! Come Out & Support Come Out the Habitat for Humanity and Vote for your Favorite Meatballs!

A personal journey to giving back.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization that helps families build and improve places to call home. They believe affordable housing plays a critical role in strong and stable communities.

Habitat for humanity offers a neighborhood revitalization program.  Neighborhood revitalization is a long-term, holistic strategy that supports residents to improve the quality of life in under-resourced communities. Habitat for Humanity takes a local and community-based approach to neighborhood revitalization to ensure that their work is driven by those with lived experience.

Residents know their neighborhood’s unique challenges and opportunities. They listen to the community’s priorities and build on their strengths, leveraging their resources and partnerships to invest in community-led projects that improve the lives of current and future residents.

When I was 5 years old, I had an unfortunate change of circumstances.  My step father who was the bread winner of the family passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in his mid twenties.

When he was alive, he and my mother had joined assets that allowed for a comfortable living.  We lived in a nice home, owned reliable vehicles, and enjoyed simple pleasures such as family trips, new clothes and shoes for school, backyard toys like sandboxes, swimming pools, swing sets, and lush gardens.  When he passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, all of those pleasures and privileges disappeared as he left no life insurance policy nor a living will to express who he wanted to be a beneficiary of his assets.  My mother became a single mother on a single income with three children from the ages of three to six.  She was not able to afford the lifestyle she and her finance had built together.  Her only choice at that time was to give up her current standard of living and obtain an apartment for rent in a housing complex that was for those of low socioeconomic status and who often required government assisted programs.  The parks and communities in which I then grew up playing in were often not safe, were dilapidated, and often attracted dangerous activity and attention.  The public swimming pool was a mile away from the housing complex and often dangerous to walk to.  There was often considerable construction to the area which was never completed and therefore a safety hazard; a risk of falling into man holes, stepping on boards and risking tetanus, and risk of the area attracting those who were looking for areas to engage in illegal activities.   I benefited from agencies such as habitat for humanity as they worked with the community to make the parks and community a safer environment to live and play.

This year on the day of the meatball throw down contest, I be turning 37 years old.  We all celebrate our very special day by doing something for ourselves.  We typically call our birthday the one day we can be selfish and do something for ourselves.  This year I’ll be entering the meatball throw down contest to benefit habitat for humanity and here is why….

My mother unfortunately passed away from a brain aneurysm when she was 37 years old; just 15 days shy of my 18th birthday.  I want to honor my mother by recognizing that she did the best with what she had.  This year instead of taking the day to be selfish, I want to be selfless and give back to a program that my mother, siblings, and I have benefited from.  I am honoring her life by contributing to a cause in her honor.  I feel blessed and fortunate to have faced adversity.  Adversity challenges us to become something greater.  My adversity has encouraged me to take on a profession that allows me to help others with personal growth and mental health challenges.

I want everyone to know that just because you face adversity, challenges, fall on hard times, your coping toolbox is empty, life hands you a deck of cards that you feel you have no option of winning; please know there are resources available.

Please stay tuned to follow my very personal journey towards giving back and making a difference in others lives’ through my experience of adversity and how it shaped me to the person I am today.

How Habitat for Humanity helps the community

Click Here to Learn More: https://www.habitat.org/our-work/neighborhood-revitalization

Meatballs sought for ‘Throwdown’

Click Here to Learn More: https://wnyt.com/top-stories/wnyt-greater-good/meatballs-sought-for-throwdown