They’ll be home for Christmas as dream comes true

Shaquaja Hollingsworth stood on the front porch holding an oversized pair of scissors, her smile lighting up the dark December night.

It was time to cut the red ribbon, with a bow in the center, that angled across the screen door of the burgundy house near 13th and Grove.

A quick snip and Shaquaja, 16, stepped inside with her father, Virgil, and her 9-year-old sister, Lebrajae.

“Welcome home!” a crowd packed into the three-bedroom home cheered.

The Hollingsworth family has a new home – just in time for Christmas.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Virgil Hollingsworth said after the dedication of the house, which was a Wichita Habitat for Humanity project.

A single father, he had longed for a place he and his daughters could call their own – a place to put down roots and truly call home. That dream came true on Thursday.

“They’re very excited,” Hollingsworth said of his daughters. “They can’t wait. They’re picking a room out and how they’re going to decorate their room.”

The family was living in a small, two-bedroom apartment when Hollingsworth learned about Habitat. As part of being approved for the program, he had to complete 250 hours of sweat equity on both his house and other Habitat homes. He also had to take classes on handling finances and home maintenance.

“For me, it’s stability for my kids and an inheritance that I can pass down from generation to generation,” Hollingsworth said.

He didn’t know a thing about building a house when he applied to be considered for a Habitat house.

“The guys that were there, they helped me out a lot,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing at all, building a house.”

The family’s house is Wichita’s 12th of 2016 for Habitat.

“Partnering with Virgil and Wichita Habitat provided us with a wonderful opportunity to give back to our community,” Diane Iseman, Intrust Bank’s communications manager, said in a statement. “It was a very meaningful experience for Intrust employees. They really got into the spirit of the build and worked hard.

“Everyone is so happy they could help complete this house in time for Virgil and his girls to be home for Christmas.”

The mortgage payments Hollingsworth makes will help pay for other Habitat homes. He’s already set up automatic payments to make sure he’s never late with a payment.

The Hollingsworth house is in Wichita Habitat for Humanity’s Rock the Block revitalization neighborhood, an initiative to improve the area stretching from Ninth to 13th streets and from Hillside to Grove. The newly dedicated house is the 27th to be built in that area since the campaign began in 2014.

A handful of Habitat homes are just down the block from the Hollingsworths.

Shaquaja and Lebrajae are both in a dance group, and their eyes lit up when someone suggested the dining room floor would make a great place to practice. They had already chosen their bedrooms but weren’t sure where the Christmas tree would go in the living room.

There’s time, though. Christmas is still a couple of days away.

This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 7:57 PM with the headline "They’ll be home for Christmas as dream comes true."