We are very excited to launch our Humans of Habitat blog post series today! This is a series of blog posts where we introduce our big Richmond Habitat Family, give you an idea of the great Habitat team working behind the scenes and building a community here in Richmond. For our first post, we are introducing the CEO of Richmond Metro Habitat, Mary Kay Huss. She oversees all the great things the Habitat team does. Her favorite part of her job is that she gets to be out in the community (COVID aside) talking to folks about the great things Habitat does and why they should support us.
Mary Kay has been in the affordable housing field for a long time, beginning with a small nonprofit called Interfaith Housing where she was the part-time Executive Director and she ran it out of their upstairs spare bedroom. After that she worked at a couple of large Episcopal Churches and came back into affordable housing with 8 years at Better Housing Coalition, followed by 5 years with Rebuilding Together Richmond. It was Mary Kay’s dream to work for Habitat and after getting encouragement to apply from the former CEO, Jane, she became a part of the Richmond Habitat family.
Mary Kay loves working for Habitat not only because this is her dream job but also because she has been in the business of providing equitable homeownership opportunities from the beginning and she has always been in the space of working to close the racial equity gap. All the work that Habitat does impacts families in a positive way for generations. One of the most touching moments at Habitat for Mary Kay is attending Home Dedications once the homes are completed. At these Dedications, Habitat celebrates the hard work the volunteers, donors, and staff put in to construct the home and the incredible journey our homebuyers have taken. Every Dedication reminds her of why Habitat does what we do and how important the work is.
She also enjoys the strong, committed team of associates that make this work happen. Even though her work is great and she believes a lot in her work, it still can be all consuming, it is important to be able to get away. She believes it is important for leadership to model a good work/life balance, so she takes her PTO to recharge. There are challenges as a CEO she has to face when she is working for a nonprofit because we do depend on the generosity of volunteers and donors to make so much of the mission happen. There are many nonprofits in the Richmond community doing good work, so donors and volunteers have many choices in where to invest their time and dollars.
Mary Kay thinks that she has been very fortunate to be able to align much of her professional career with her deeply held values. Her belief that housing is fundamental to a family’s success shapes the type of work she chooses to pursue. She believes that people are naturally generous and want to help, so giving them the opportunity to do so through a gift or shopping at our Restore is a great way for folks to exercise their desire to do good. As we are doing more build programs, offering more great deals at the ReStore, we encourage you to check out all of these great opportunities to do good in your community! We really appreciate all of your support and can’t wait to see you as a volunteer, a shopper, or a doner!
