DATE: Wednesday, September 17, 1997         TAG: 9709170001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT

                                            LENGTH:   77 lines

CHRISTMAS IN APRIL POOL SHELTER-FOR-THE-POOR RESOURCES

Christmas in April * USA is coming to Hampton Roads next spring. Operating through affiliates in every state and the District of Columbia, Christmas in April germinated from a seed planted in Midland, Texas, when members of a church turned out in April 1973 to paint and repair the homes of impoverished elderly - an exercise repeated the next year, and the next. . . .

St. Columba's Episcopal Church emulated the Midland example in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1982.

Six years later, Christmas in April * USA came into being in the capital city to take the fix-up program nationwide. The organization took its name from a Midland resident's expression of gratitude for improvements made to her home by donated labor, money, material and supplies. She exclaimed, ``It's like Christmas in April!''

Over the years, 850,000 volunteers have rehabilitated 31,300 houses in pursuit of the goal of ``rebuilding America, one house at a time.''

Last week, at a Norfolk Waterside Marriott breakfast, Christmas in April president Patricia Riley Johnson announced that the group aspires to rehabiliate homes of needy elderly in Norfolk next April - on the same weekend that Paint Your Heart Out will be repairing, painting and landscaping scores of houses owned and occupied by disabled and elderly poor in South Hampton Roads.

Initiated in the 1990s by the Chesapeake Rotary Club, Paint Your Heart Out - like Christmas in April - leaped to communities beyond its place of origin.

Christmas in April * Norfolk's board of directors should be in place shortly. Participation by major corporations seems assured. With Christmas in April, South Hampton Roads is blessed with three high-visibility private-sector programs dedicated to providing safe, decent housing for the poor.

Paint Your Heart Out is one, and South Hampton Roads Habitat for Humanity, which completed its first house in Portsmouth's Prentis Park in 1990, is the third. Completed and occupied South Hampton Roads Habitat houses total 42 - built by churches, all-female crews, physicians, lawyers, banks, technical-vocational students and others. South Hampton Roads Habitat's current schedule calls for building a dozen houses a year.

Founded by former lawyer Millard Fuller, Habitat constructed two houses in Americus, Ga., in 1976. Habitat homeowners-to-be invest 400 hours of ``sweat equity,'' working alongside volunteers. Last year in the United States alone, about 4,000 houses were built or renovated by Habitat's 1,500 U.S. affiliates. Habitat worldwide produced 7,000 houses. Within the near future, Habitat is expected to become the No. 1 U.S. homebuilder.

Habitat's seemingly impossible dream is ``to make substandard housing socially, politically and morally unacceptable in the communities we serve.'' Habitat reports that after years of effort by many people, substandard housing in and around Americus is virtually nonexistent.

Viewed from space, what Habitat and Christmas in April have achieved over the years may not seem like much. Earthlings number about 6 billion. U.S. population is about 270 million. Could even the most heroic, ongoing private-sector Good Samaritanism appreciably shrink the quantity of substandard housing?

Perhaps not. But like countless other humanitarian enterprises, Habitat for Humanity, Christmas in April and Paint Your Heart Out create networks of people who translate caring into constructive, nurturing acts that ease individual pain and breathe health into communities.

A suggestion: Christmas in April, Paint Your Heart Out, South Hampton Roads Habitat for Humanity, associated builders, Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and City Hall, working with churches, schools and civic and business groups, should consider collaborating to upgrade conspicuously a one- or two-block area in a poor neighborhood - Park Place, say - next April.

A concurrent neighborhood festival featuring home-grown musical and other events would multiply residents' involvement in the upgrade. Videotapes of the happening could be shown on public-access TV channels.

Broadcast and print media would herald the goings-on, amplifying their impact and perhaps spurring others to lend a hand during the April 1999 build, repair and brighten frenzy. Wouldn't that be loverly? MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The

Virginian-Pilot.

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