Marti Martin, May 2010 Habitat Hero

Some of Marti Martin's students pose in front of the Youth Build house in Spring 2008. Marti's students have raised $20,000 for the Youth Build over the past four years. They are the Youth Build's largest supporter.

Q & A with Habitat Hero Marti Martin

1. How long have you lived in Memphis? 17 years.

2. How long have you volunteered with Habitat? I have been volunteering on Habitat builds for nine years.

3. How did you get involved with Habitat? As the sponsor of the National Honor Society at Bolton High School, the students and I are always looking for community service projects. When my oldest daughter was going to work on a Habitat site with our church, I called and asked if the students at Bolton could come and help too. We have been volunteering ever since.

4. What kind of activities have you participated in during your time as a volunteer? I started by bringing the students to work on landscaping weekends. After a few builds we were told we could come and work on siding and painting. Since the annual Youth Build has started, we have been working as many of the weekends as possible.

5. Why do you volunteer your time with Habitat? I love to help others and getting to work side by side with the students from school makes it even better. When the students join NHS many of them have been doing community service for several years, but others have never really been involved at all. They think of it as just having to do something that takes up their time, but when they go to a Habitat build and see all the volunteers, see the family working right along side everyone, find out how many hours the family must work to get the house, find out that other Habitat homeowners are on site working just to show how much they appreciate the house that was built for them, then they start to realize what an impact volunteering can have. I volunteer because I love it and I love getting the youth involved in what I hope will be a life filled with volunteering.

6. Do you have a favorite Habitat moment you would like to share? My favorite times are when my students come back after a weekend of work and tell me the stories of the day, when a student comes back after a weekend and asks if he can go back for the rest of the weekends of that build cause it’s so great, when young men and women come back after they have graduated from college and tell me that they are involved with the local Habitat chapter in the town they now live in because they got started in high school and want to keep helping.

7. Do you have any personal details you would like to add (where you work, how many kids, what do you like to do on your free time, etc.)? I have been married for 24 years to my wonderful husband, Todd. We have three daughters: Jill 23, Holly 21, and Alex 15. I have been a math teacher for 25 years, the last 15 of those at Bolton High School, which is a fantastic school! I spend my free time with family, going on church trips with the youth, tailgating at Razorback games, and working with prison ministry.