LINDA SIBLEY

My name is Linda Sibley and Habitat for Humanity has a very special place deep in my heart. Currently, I am a resident of unincorporated Winter Garden. My husband, Dave and I built a home in Horizon West approximately 9 years ago, shortly after we were married. Although I am currently 70 years old, this is the first home I have ever owned. 

For decades, I was a single mother living in and around the Daytona Beach area and even though I joined and participated in the Daytona Beach Women Build team for many years, and deeply believed in Habitat's ability to assist single mothers, like myself, to obtain stability, security and safety for themselves and their children, a felony stalking situation haunted me for many years and never enabled me to feel safe enough to pursue a Habitat home for myself and my children. Although I worked hard and tried to have a career, I lived in the clutches of total fear; not only fear of the unknown, but the fear of being stalked by someone who wanted nothing more than to destroy my life.   Not being able to provide the security of a stable home for myself and my children has always been one of the biggest regrets of my life because I truly believe it would have drastically changed the trajectory of all our lives. Having a home of our own would have provided my children and I with hope; which during that particular timeframe, we were desperately clinging to any shred of hope we could find as we simply tried to survive. 

My children are now adults, college graduates and each own their own homes; homes where they and their children experience what they never had growing up; security in knowing in their knowers they have a home to come home to, each and every day, and its THEIR home, in THEIR neighborhood, surrounded by neighbors and friends. Many people take all of this for granted, but when you've never had the opportunity to experience it for yourself, its essential to obtain. I'm so proud of my children, and what they've achieved, but I'm also acutely aware of what I could have provided for my own children thru Habitat for Humanity. 

Please help me help women and their families who live in our community, who deserve to have what many of us currently have and possibly take for granted; stability, security, safety and pride in the fact they could, someday, have a place to call "my home."