LaVerne and Al Stokes on Sandtown Habitat for Humanity

LS: Trust has to be there. That is a very important <strong>and</strong> key factor. People have to be able to
trust you <strong>and</strong> so, what I share with people is, “Let your word be your bond; don’t commit what
you can’t deliver.”
AS: That’s where the partnering comes in. Mark <strong>and</strong> <strong>Al</strong>lan knew <strong>LaVerne</strong> <strong>and</strong> several other
folks in the community very well. Now the community would trust <strong>LaVerne</strong> but it had to learn
to trust Mark <strong>and</strong> <strong>Al</strong>lan. So they’re partnering with someone in the community. The community
person knows the needs of the folks in the community; that’s why partnering is so very
important. And that’s where you are going to get your trust. I mean, just to walk in <strong>and</strong> say,
“I’ve arrived.” Well who’s that? But when Laverne said, “Mark’s arrived <strong>and</strong> he’s a decent
person.” They will trust someone they’ve known for 20 years.
Omar McRoberts: You described this traditional Black Baptist church in the area but you also
mentioned that there are a lot of free community churches, <strong>and</strong> I was curious about what their
presence was like.
LS: A lot of them are small storefront churches, which don’t have a lot to offer. But everybody
has something to offer, so we try to reach everybody in the community. I am a firm believer that
it takes everybody working together. If I come in this section, somebody might go over to this
section. Let’s work with this as a whole. There are so many people in need – just the daily
basics, the things we take for granted. Some people may not have any food on the table. So I
just think it takes all of us working together.
Sharon Baptist Church really gets under my skin, <strong>and</strong> I have to constantly pray about that
because it’s a commuter church. You just come <strong>and</strong> take up parking spaces <strong>and</strong> you don’t do
anything else! Another big church here is Saint Peter Catholic Church. Because we don’t have
space for a hall, when have our homeowners Christmas party, we rent from St. Peter’s. Each
time we have paid a fee, <strong>and</strong> I underst<strong>and</strong> that it doesn’t run on water, but this time the deacon
wanted us to pay $675. And when we went over there in the early part of December…I’m going
to show you how God works…I had already cut the check for $400 because that is all we were
going to give them.
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