Habitat of East Polk

Our 5K in the Park event directly funds the Habitat for Humanity of East Polk County, Inc. Our mission is to eliminate substandard houses by building safe, decent and affordable shelter in partnership with families, businesses, churches and communities in Auburndale, Bartow, Davenport, Dundee, Eagle Lake, Eloise, Ft. Meade, Frostproof, Haines City, Lake Wales, Loughman, Wahneta, Waverly, and Winter Haven.

Habitat of East Polk has built over 130 homes in east Polk County and more than 6,600 houses in the state of Florida and 225,000 in North America and ninety foreign countries since 1975! Over 2,000,000 people have been blessed with a Habitat home.

There is hope for families who cannot otherwise afford conventional mortgage financing to own a safe, decent house. We build one house at a time, filling in vacant lots, Habitat replaces abandoned or substandard houses with a new dwelling, producing a tax entity for the local government, and often stimulating neighbors to upgrade their own homes and property.

In addition, over 90% of every unrestricted dollar contributed the last four years was applied to Habitat’s single goal of building decent houses for families in need (source: annual independent audit by Wiggins, Booth & Company, CPAs).

Approved candidates become homeowner partners whose monthly mortgage payments are recycled to build other Habitat houses as they work along side numerous volunteers to build other candidates’ houses as well as their own.