Ann Hardie, a storyteller with Habitat for Humanity International, tells the story of Taylor and his dream of an Austin Habitat for Humanity home in memory of his mom incredibly well in a recent story in the Habitat magazine. This is Taylor’s #onething, his powdered donut, his expression of love. As Taylor says so well, “what would mom want us to do? Change the world.”
As an architecture student, Maureen Thompson designed a Habitat house that would forever change the lives of dozens of families, including hers. Doing one thing, no matter how big or small, has the power to change the world, Taylor Thompson says. Take his mom. As an architecture student, she helped design and build a house with Austin Habitat for Humanity.
That one thing inspired her parents to volunteer with their local Habitat, where they have helped build more than 70 homes. And now Taylor, who is just 17, has raised $85,000 to build a Habitat home, around the corner from the one his mother designed. He is dedicating the house to his mother, who died in October 2014 after a decade-long battle with breast cancer. “There are so many different ways that our family could have taken the loss,” says Taylor, who has two younger sisters. “All of us ask ourselves, ‘What would mom want us to do if she was still here?’ For me, the answer is that she wouldn’t want us to sit around. She would want us to do things, to change the world.” You can read the rest of Ann’s story here.
On Saturday, June 25, this home was dedicated to Annette Lopez and her family, along with several other homes on Eggers Street in east Austin. It was a day of love, and Taylor has been blessed by many news stories, articles and documentaries that tell of the journey to the Saturday that Annette received her keys.
From KXAN to Fox7Austin to the Habitat for Humanity International magazine and a more personal story told by two students at University of Texas, all of the stories of this journey can be found here.