{"id":31467,"date":"2023-09-28T00:06:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T06:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-southwest-and-habitat-for-humanity-form-partnership\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:41:18","slug":"pueblo-community-college-southwest-and-habitat-for-humanity-form-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-southwest-and-habitat-for-humanity-form-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"Pueblo Community College Southwest and Habitat for Humanity form partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pueblo
Pueblo Community College President Patty Erjavec and Heidi Mitchell, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Montezuma County, sign a two-by-four that will be used by PCC Southwest students to build a Habitat for Humanity home. (Amy Matthew\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Representatives of Pueblo Community College Southwest and Habitat for Humanity of Montezuma County are working toward a collaboration that they say will benefit students and the local community.<\/p>\n

Leaders from both organizations gathered Monday to celebrate the signing of a memorandum of understanding that will provide an experiential learning lab for PCC Southwest construction program students. This program and its students will help build a Habitat for Humanity home in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Director of Academic Services for PCC Southwest Perry Pepper approached Habitat for Humanity after the college started a construction technology program, bringing up the idea of a potential partnership. Pepper said the goal of the program is to train the workforce while addressing the need for homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that as we diligently train a skilled construction workforce, we can also actively contribute to the construction of homes, thus fostering workforce development and helping provide homes for the community,\u201d Pepper said.<\/p>\n

Habitat for Humanity was more than happy to explore the idea of partnership, eventually leading to the signed memorandum on Monday after about a year of planning and work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis partnership is a win all around,\u201d said Heidi Mitchell, executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Montezuma County. \u201cWe\u2019re engaging students in the community, putting more affordable housing into the local inventory, and keeping students here to raise their families because we can give them work skills and more affordable places to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

PCC Dean Lisa Snyder said the program will teach students work skills while making a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really a game-changing partnership for both the school and the community, the experiential learning, and putting students to work actually building the homes and constructing them and being able to partner with Habitat, which will allow the students to see the benefit of their work. It\u2019s full cycle of what we\u2019re about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Participants
Participants pose for a photo after signing a memorandum of understanding that will provide an experiential learning lab for a PCC Southwest construction program. They are Ethan Deffenbaugh, co-founder of Higher Purpose Homes; Patty Erjavec, PCC president; Lyndreth Wall, Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council member; Heidi Mitchell, Habitat for Humanity of Montezuma County executive director; Perry Pepper, PCC Southwest director of academic services pose for a photo after the signing. (Amy Matthew\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Both Pepper and Snyder say the partnership allows PCC to fulfill its mission to impact the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission at Pueblo Community College is to enrich the communities we serve, and this program is a great example of the college being sincere about that mission,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can talk about what we hope to accomplish, but this is this is living our mission, you know, putting our mission into action in order to provide that meaningful learning experience and meet the community needs,\u201d Snyder added<\/p>\n

According to the news release, 12 students in PCC Southwest\u2019s carpentry class will help build the 700-square-foot starter home. The components will be constructed on the Mancos campus under the supervision of PCC instructors and transported to the home site to be assembled. Higher Purpose Homes, one of PCC\u2019s industry partners, will build the roof.<\/p>\n

Pepper said the hope is to complete the house by the end of the fall semester in December, and the floor of the home will be under construction the first part of next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity for PCC construction technology students to work with and partner with Habitat for Humanity is sure to be a rewarding experience for everyone,\u201d said PCC President Patty Erjavec, who was in town for the partnership\u2019s signing. \u201cThis creative learning lab will yield the competencies necessary for our students to contribute to the building trades need for skilled workers in the Southwest region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half the students in the construction class are members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. Tribal Council member and Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 school board member Lyndreth Wall, a supporter of the college and the construction program, attended Monday\u2019s signing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a sight for sore eyes seeing the collaboration,\u201d Wall said.<\/p>\n

He added he was happy to see the tribe \u201creaching out beyond their tribal, reservation lines,\u201d noting that it takes \u201chumanity to work together to support one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked that, because it takes different nationalities working together,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to be just Ute Mountain tribal members. We come in all colors. All nationalities working together, building houses for people to call home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program, like other programs at PCC, is funded through Colorado Career Advance, which provides funding for programs educating students for in-demand fields. Since it is a no-cost program, Colorado Career Advance pays for the student\u2019s tuition and textbooks.<\/p>\n

They will build another home in the spring, and are actively recruiting instructors for the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis partnership will provide real-world experience for students and a sense of pride for each student that works on this and future builds,\u201d Pepper said. \u201cStudents for years to come will be able to share with their family and friends their pride from participation in these meaningful projects as they walk or drive by these homes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Construction students at PCC will help Habitat for Humanity build a starter home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81452,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31467\/revisions\/81452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31467"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}