The sun came Sunday afternoon in time to shine for two families as they received the blessings and well-wishes, and keys for their new homes, built through Habitat for Humanity.
The two families — Sakib and Mahira Purisevic and their two children and Reynaldo Ojeda and Ana Aquino and their four children — have been working through Habitat’s application process, then building the duplex house, for years.
Evergreen Habitat for Humanity, the local Habitat organization, threw a celebration dedicating the new homes and honoring the accomplishments of the two families outside the houses in the Father Blanchet Park neighborhood.
“Today is a very special day for me and my family,” Sakib Purisevic told the crowd before his daughter, Amina, 15, took the keys.
“Me and my family will have a better life in this neighborhood and this new house,” he said, thanking the donors, Habitat’s management, volunteers and the assembled well-wishers.
“I really appreciate everybody who helped work on the houses, it really means a lot for me and my family,” he said. “God bless everybody. Thank you so much.”
Aquino joked that Purisevic stole her thunder.
“As you see, I wanted to say something, but my neighbors said everything that I want to say,” Ana Aquino said to laughs. “Thank you to everyone who made this possible.”
The Purisevics left their native Bosnia in 1996, as war raged in the region.
They have two children, 15-year-old Amina and 13-year-old Faris. Amina was born after they left, and they learned later she has cerebral palsy, so she uses a wheelchair.
After Purisevic’s speech, Adis Zolja, Sakib Purisevic’s brother-in-law, explained the house was built with wheelchair accessibility in mind.
“It’s going to be much easier for her,” Zolja said. “Easy access. It’s going to make her life easier, and their life easier with her.”
Reynaldo Ojeda and Ana Aquino’s youngest, 6-year-old Leslie, took the keys on her family’s behalf. Mom, Dad, Leslie and her three other sisters, 11-year-old Bryanna, 13-year-old Julia and 15-year-old Josie, had been sharing a two-bedroom mobile home that was falling into disrepair.
Along with everything else, Aquino said they were excited to have a yard for the girls to play in, and room so the girls can do their homework with some space from the rest of the family.
Evergreen Habitat for Humanity said 569 volunteers contributed 9,052 hours of work on the two homes.
The two families join several others on 77th Court, a cul-de-sac neighborhood of other Habitat for Humanity homes. There are four more houses to build in the neighborhood.
