Each year, IVHFH seeks an influential woman in the community to honor with the Women Build. The honoree works with a committee of women to raise $55,000 in local donations and recruit volunteers to help a local family build an affordable home and to help an existing homeowner make affordable repairs or accessibility modifications to their home. Along with the efforts of the Women Build committee, a local family will partner with IVHFH to build an energy-efficient home that they will purchase with an affordable home mortgage. The Habitat homeownership program ensures that the household pays no more than 30% of their income to cover housing costs allowing more of their funds to be dedicated toward other essentials like education, health and transportation. Additionally, Women Build will support a local resident in need of critical home repairs and/or accessibility modifications. Through Helping Hands, a homeowner will receive affordable repairs so they can live more safely in their existing home. 

Jane and the Women Build committee encourage everyone, regardless of gender, to take part in any way they can. We need supporters to swing a hammer on the construction site, provide food for volunteers, make in kind donations or financial donations and attend fundraising events. ​

The meal is accompanied by miso soup, sake, and pickled ginger. Dessert is mochi ice cream with coffee or tea. Guests take home what they can’t eat along with the sushi rolling mat, which is theirs to keep.

Kazi's Sushi Party will be auctioned off  in a live auction at Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity's annual Women Build fundraiser, Hammers and Hardhats. Additionally, there are several other exciting packages that will be featured in the live auction including a breakfast riverboat cruise, a week-long stay at a condo in Keystone, Colorado, a private morel mushroom hunt, and more! There will also be nearly 100 items up for grabs in a silent auction. Proceeds support construction of the Doris Preucil Women Build home and Women Build Helping Hands repair. 

For your chance to bid on Kazi's Sushi Party, along with many other fantastic silent and live auction packages, purchase tickets today! Proceeds will benefit the Doris Preucil Women Build. For more information, email tami@iowavalleyhabitat.org or call 319-519-6121.

Terry and Johanna Abernathy have generously donated a riverboat cruise on the Coralville Reservoir to the Hammers and Hardhats auction fundraiser on November 14. Winners will enjoy a 3 to 4 hour cruise for 20 people on the Abernathy's beautiful houseboat, Ausgezeichnet. While guests relax and view the scenic shoreline, they will also enjoy a breakfast with mimosas provided by the Doris Preucil Women Build committee. This auction package would be perfect for a special birthday, a wedding or baby shower, a corporate retreat, or simply a fun gathering for friends and family. 

The breakfast riverboat cruise will be auctioned off in a live auction at Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity's annual Women Build fundraiser, Hammers and Hardhats. Additionally, there are several other exciting packages that will be featured in the live auction including a week-long stay at a condo in Keystone, Colorado, a private sushi party hosted by a Women Build committee member, a private morel mushroom hunt, and more! There will also be nearly 100 items up for grabs in a silent auction at the event. Proceeds support construction of the Doris Preucil Women Build home and Women Build Helping Hands repair. 

Winners will make arrangements with the donors to schedule the breakfast cruise in summer of 2020. 

The Doris Preucil Women Build committee is excited to announce they have received a unique and exciting donation for their upcoming Hammers and Hardhats auction fundraiser on Thursday, November 14. Habitat supporters, Lyse Strnad and Tom Leavenworth will arrange a private morel mushroom hunt on their property in Cedar County.

In May 2020, the winner of this experience and one guest will come out to Cedar County to join a group of morel mushroom hunters in hundreds of acres of private timber. Participants should wear their oldest, briar-torn clothes and waterproof boots or shoes that can get wet. The winners will be provided with a mushroom stick to use for the day. This is a vigorous activity with lots of steep hills and creeks and brushy woods along the Cedar River. The team will use deer paths and horse trails on the hike.

After several hours of hunting, the group will come back to Lyse and Tom's house where all findings will be split evenly among all the hunters all while the group sips on delicious mint juleps served by the hosts.

Never hunted morel mushrooms before? Lyse and Tom will teach you all the tricks and take you to their best hunting spots. There are no guarantees except that you will have a lot of fun and a great hike on beautiful land. 

The Morels and Mint Juleps package will be auctioned off in a live auction at Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity's annual Women Build fundraiser, Hammers and Hardhats. Additionally, there are several other exciting packages that will be featured in the live auction including a week-long stay at a condo in Keystone, Colorado, a private sushi party hosted by a Women Build committee member, a riverboat cruise on the Coralville Reservoir for 20 people, and more! There will also be nearly 100 items up for grabs in a silent auction at the event. Proceeds support construction of the Doris Preucil Women Build home and Women Build Helping Hands repair. 

In August, Doris Preucil and the Women Build committee along with Red Cedar Chamber Music hosted a fundraising event featuring food, drinks, commentary from the future Women Build homeowners, and live music performances by Doris Preucil, Bill Preucil, Miera Kim, and Carey Bostian. Miera Kim is Red Cedar Chamber Music's Executive Director, and Carey Bostian is the organization's Artistic Director. The couple hosted guests in their home, the historic Musser-Dixon house in Iowa City. Doris Preucil and the Women Build committee want to express their sincere thanks to everyone who attended the event and made generous donations in support of construction of the Doris Preucil Women Build home and Women Build Helping Hands repair project. Special thanks to the wonderful volunteers and donors who helped host the event, Miera Kim and Carey Bostian, Thomas Leavenworth and Lyse Strnad, Gary and LaDonna Wicklund, Dale and Patty Roberts, and the Women Build committee. More than $7,000 was raised through this event! 

We are working with Sandy Steil of MMS Consultants to put together a class for women interested in hands-on learning of maintenance, repair, and construction topics. After recognizing that many women desire these skills and knowledge, but often feel uneasy attending male-centric classes, Sandy has worked tirelessly to put this class together. All instructors and participants will be women!

• We need a classroom! And by classroom, we mean a home to rehab! If you know of a home that we could purchase, rehab with class attendees, and sell to a low-income household at an affordable price, please contact us! Email gabe@iowavalleyhabitat.org.
• If you are a woman interested in learning more about this class, please contact gabe@iowavalleyhabitat.org.
• Also, if you have access to tools, lumber, hardware, etc. that could be used in this class, please contact gabe@iowavalleyhabitat.org.