FGCU’s softball team showed up and showed out at a Habitat for Humanity wall raising event on Women’s Equality Day last Saturday, August 26.

Caridad Estes is one of the FGCU softball players that went out to Cape Coral to volunteer, joining the all-female crew. 

“We do this every year as a softball team,” Estes said. “Volunteering is really big for our team and our culture. Our coach really instills it into us what it means to be an FGCU student, and what it means to be sustainable.”

All 15 girls, along with their assistant coach, started the day hammering down hurricane straps and hurricane clips before raising the walls of Jennifer Silva’s new home.

For the softball team, this means another chance of getting to bond with new players, getting service-learning hours and showing up for a community member in need. For Silva, this is a long-awaited goal to happen.

“It’s been a long time. I’ve been trying to get in this program for a couple of years already,” Silva said.

She  is a single mom working two jobs Monday through Friday. She currently shares a bedroom with her 11-year-old son at her parents’ home.

“Finally, two years ago, I’m like, Oh, I think I need to get my own place now,” Silva said.

That’s when she decided she was ready to partner with Habitat for Humanity of Lee and Hendry counties, applying for their Affordable Homeownership Program and just getting approved this year.

Silva’s home is one of the 68 that Habitat plans to build by the end of the year. Cece Schepp, the organization’s Communications Director, says that in the past fiscal year Habitat has seen a 53% increase in their program.

 “Majority of our families are paying 50% or more of their income on rent alone,” said Schepp. “When one of those paychecks has to go towards just rent and your living expenses, what does that leave behind for childcare, for health care, for your groceries that are increasing in cost?”

From July 2021 to June of 2022, Habitat has helped 45 families purchase affordable homes.

“It’s really life changing, it’s the opportunity for families to be able to purchase a home, to build wealth, you know, to really leave something behind for their family for generations to come,” Schepp said.

It’s a reality Silva and her son will soon get to enjoy together.

“He’s very excited,” she said. “He already picked out all his rooms. One of them is his room and the other is his game room.”

This is also a reality FGCU’s softball team was able to be a part of too.

“You know, construction is a male dominated industry. That’s just the truth,” Schepp said. “FGCU softball team come out here, show that, that they can do everything. They really are a great example of kind of digging in getting their hands dirty and lifting others up in the community, which is really cool.” 

Estes believes it’s all worth it to be “power women” with power tools and to there for someone in need.

The girls got to celebrate the raising of the first two walls by embracing a Habitat tradition – writing good wishes to Jennifer on the unfinished wood.