Gordon-Deming Village: A Place Called Home to Two New Families
August 15, 2020
Leah O'Keefe, 8, stepped with joy into what is her new bedroom, after years in a cramped Pittsfield apartment with no safe place outside to play.
"I have two windows to myself," she said, sweeping her hand across them.
O'Keefe's parents, Susie Barto and Derrick O'Keefe, and Leah's siblings, Sean, 4, and Danica, 2, are one of two families handed the keys to their new home Saturday, as well as gifts and blessings from a Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity community that stretched from a local student tradesman, to dozens of local contractors and other business, to the mayor and local state lawmakers.
After a virtual dedication on Facebook, about 25 organizers and volunteers were on-site for the real live one, as families were nearly speechless over the magnitude of this life-changing event that they themselves also worked to make happen.
The two four-bedroom, two-bath, energy-efficient homes are the product of hundreds of hours of sweat equity from the two families, as well as the power of giving in the Berkshires.