Project Mend-A-House provides home services to residents in need

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Project Mend-A-House (PMAH) is an area non-profit that helps provide home maintenance services to those in need in Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park. The organization has been able to provide assistance to seniors, veterans and the disabled for more than 30 years.

Currently PMAH is being lead by Executive Director Jennifer Schock-Bolles.

PL: Who does your organization serve?

Schock-Bolles: Project Mend-A-House (PMAH) helps low-income residents of Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park. Our clients are primarily seniors and over half have a disability. Many are veterans. Our clients are homeowners who need help with basic home maintenance issues – leaky faucets, broken windows, falling gutters. When you are having difficulty putting food on the table and providing basic necessities for yourself and your family, maintaining your home is often put on the back burner, sometimes for years. Clients requalify every year but once qualified, can ask for help as often as they need.

PL: Why is your organization important to the community?

Schock-Bolles: Often, by the time a client comes to Project Mend-A-House for help, we are their last hope. Although there are other resources out there, PMAH is the only one that provides services completely free of charge. Sometimes, even paying for half the materials is too much for a low-income homeowner. By helping with on-going maintenance issues, we help prevent more serious and more expensive repairs down the road. For example, fixing a leaky faucet can often prevent having to replace the floor which can cost thousands of dollars.

Our services help bolster neighborhood home values. Especially since the recession, many area residents have become “house poor”. They own nice homes but no longer have the income needed to maintain them. This becomes a detriment to the entire neighborhood. We also help restore a sense of dignity and pride of ownership to low-income homeowners and low-income neighborhoods by restoring some of the curb appeal of homes.

Even if a potential client does not qualify for our free services because their income is too high, we are able to help someone if they are a senior, have a disability or a veteran and the request is safety related. We just ask for a donation of $25 per hour and the cost of materials. Many seniors, even if financially secure, are on a fixed income or uncomfortable hiring contractors. PMAH offers a lower-cost, reputable option for their safety repairs and their donation for our services helps PMAH with a sustainable funding stream.

We help older or disabled clients remain safely and independently in their homes through our durable medical equipment loan closet. The loan closet provides ramps, grab bars, hospital beds, wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, toilet and shower seats and other equipment like our FreedomAlert personal medical emergency alert device. We also provide home safety checks and have a fall prevention education program.

This past spring, we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club and the Prince William Chamber of Commerce to host the Spring Into Health Fair. A free event, we provided over a dozen different types of health screenings, a vendor/education fair with over 50 vendors and many health and fitness demonstrations. Over 300 people participated. It was a fantastic family friendly event that we are looking forward to doing again next year.

PL: What is the history of the organization?

Schock-Bolles: A joint effort between private citizens and the Prince William County government, Project Mend-A-House was created in 1984. At the time, Lily Blackwell was a volunteer delivering meals to seniors who were confined to their homes due to disabilities. Her call to action began with the observation that a number of seniors along her delivery route could no longer perform necessary home repairs. Basic home repair and some structural improvements were needed to ensure that these disabled seniors remained safe and independent. Ms. Blackwell partnered with Toni Clemons-Porter and Lin Wagener of the Prince William Area Agency on Aging to create the foundation of an organization that has now provided humanitarian assistance for over thirty years. Project Mend-A-House received it’s 501c3 designation in 1995.

PL: Where is your organization located?

Schock-Bolles: In December of 2014, the PMAH moved out of donated county space into it’s own office space in the City of Manassas at 9500 Technology Drive, Suite 101 (in the Falcon building, behind Baker Post Funeral home on Hwy 28*. We have a small warehouse on the site as well.

PL: What is your annual budget?

Schock-Bolles: Our annual budget is a little over $250,000. With this small budget, we help over 200 clients a year by providing over 500 home repair, safety and accessibility tasks. Our volunteers provide over 4,000 hours of service each year. We are only able provide our services through the generosity of our volunteers and supporters. Without them, Project Mend-A-House would not exist.

PL: How can residents help your cause?

Shock-Bolles: Residents can help Project Mend-A-House in many ways. Through volunteering (on projects, with community outreach, through capacity building and in administrative capacities), helping develop community/corporate partnerships, with fundraising, and financial support. We rely heavily on our relationships in the religious, civic and business communities and are always looking to strengthen these ties or develop new ones.

We host two community service days each year, our Fall Fixit Fest and our Spring Spruce Up. This is a great opportunity to volunteer with PMAH on an occasional basis and have a major impact in someone’s life.

PL: What makes your organization different/unique?

Schock-Bolles: Project Mend-A-House truly exemplifies “neighbors helping neighbors”. Founded in Prince William County, we are not part of some larger, national organization, we are as local as it gets. We are the only home repair organization that provides services free of charge to the most vulnerable residents in our community. We are a wonderful example of what can be accomplished with a community pulls together to solve a problem.