Sherry Easley guided her 29-year-old daughter Alivia through the front door of a house on Edgeway Drive in Winter Garden.
They instantly were surrounded by planks of wood, sawdust and tools.
But instead of only seeing the framing of the interior walls of the house, Easley had a vision.
Outside the front porch would be bushes and flowers. Inside, she could picture Alivia’s princess room. She could see the fenced-in yard so her dog, Oliver, could exit out the doggy door and roam the backyard while she’s grilling and Alivia is playing on the swing set or in the sandbox. At night, she could rest outside, taking in the fresh air.
That vision soon will become a reality as West Orange Habitat for Humanity finishes building a house Sherry and Alivia Easley can call their own.
The house is expected to be complete early next year.
Receiving the keys to the house will be a symbol for years of hard work and dedication Easley put in to better not only her life but also Alivia’s and set them up for future success.
Despite the challenges Easley has faced in her life, she persisted and now is thrilled to see her prayers and vision manifest into reality after working with Matthew’s Hope and West Orange Habitat for Humanity to learn the necessary skills to care for herself and be the best mom she can be.
“(Moving into the house) is the answer to prayer that I’ve been praying for years that I’m now seeing it manifest,” Easley said. “It just brings me back to who God says I am is really who I am. I can really walk in it and believe it. I don’t have to be perfect; I just have to be who God has called me to be for that day.”
Sherry Easley and her daughter Alivia already have a vision for their new home before it’s even finished being built.
Photo by Liz RamosFostering hope
When Easley was going through a divorce after a 30-year marriage, she said she was left “pretty much desolate.”
Realizing she and her two daughters were going to be homeless and couldn’t pay her bills, she went to Discovery Church, where she met Pastor Dale Ward and his wife, who not only prayed for Easley and her family but also allowed them to move into their home for two weeks.
The Wards introduced Easley to Scott Billue, founder of Matthew’s Hope Ministries.
And Easley’s journey to avoiding homelessness began.
Easley entered Matthew’s Hope Moving Forward Program, a transitional housing program, and started putting in the work to learn how to successfully live independently and self-sufficiently.
“I needed a lot of the social skills and how to budget all of the things that I should have learned as a child,” she said.
Growing up in foster homes and group homes, Easley said she was used to life not being all about her. While others in the Matthew’s Hope program struggled with having to be financially transparent and giving up their income to the organization as part of the program, Easley complied with ease.
When she graduated from the program after two-and-one-half years, she was debt free. She also graduated completing her General Education Development.
The program not only was beneficial to Easley but also her daughter Kelly, who was 16 at the time. Being in the program gave Kelly the life and social skills to be successful.
“Scott stepped in and became the father figure and gave (Kelly) her own one-bedroom house, put her in the program, showed her how to budget and she got her first job at Matthew’s Hope,” Easley said of her daughter. “She literally had to give all her money to Matthew’s Hope, which as a 16-year-old kid that didn’t go over well, but when she graduated the program, she paid off her own car and had a $4,000 savings, which set her up to understanding the necessity to save money.”
Setting up the future
Graduating from Matthew’s Hope transitional housing program made Easley’s acceptance to the West Orange Habitat for Humanity program easier.
She cried when she learned of her acceptance into the program. She finally had a plan to ensure Alivia, who now is 29 years old and has Down syndrome, will be cared for the rest of her life.
“It was an answered prayer that I’ve been praying for years, since I’ve had her,” Easley said. “I always thought, ‘What am I going to do with Alivia when I grow up, or when I pass?’ Because I had no family, it’s up to me.”
Habitat was the key to setting up not only her future but also Alivia’s.
“I’m very grateful that out of all the hard work I’ve done in the past 10 years, I’m now seeing it come to fruition because I’m able to provide a home for (Alivia),” Easley said. “She’s set up financially forever. She’s got a forever home. … It’s a gift I can give her. I can know with all my heart that I did the best I could do to be her mom because she’s had a hard road.”
Being accepted into the Habitat program has deepened Easley’s financial knowledge and set her up to become a successful homeowner.
Gayle Fleming, director of homeowner services for West Orange Habitat, beamed with pride over Easley.
“She’s worked really hard, and she will come to me and I will see the breakthrough in her head,” Fleming said. “She’s grown a lot, and she is a cheerleader for the whole community. We all just love Sherry.”
For the past 10 weeks, Easley and other Habitat future homeowners have been learning financial literacy in classes provided by Habitat. Now, they will focus on knowledge needed to be a successful homeowner, such as home maintenance.
Every day, Easley excitedly waits in anticipation for her house to be complete.
“I sit there and I picture all the time what I’m going to do, what little home projects I am going to do in the house,” she said.
The home on Edgeway Drive in Winter Garden will be the first home she will have ever owned.
She constantly was moving to different homes growing up in foster care. When she and her husband were married, her husband was a maintenance director for apartment complexes, so for 30 years she lived in apartments, moving at least 10 times throughout the marriage. After Matthew’s Hope transitional housing program where she lived in an apartment, she moved to an apartment in Clermont.
Next stop is the Habitat house.
“I’ll never have to move again and that’s absolutely beautiful,” Easley said. “This is the last move.”
Sherry Easley looked at a note a volunteer wrote for her and her daughter on the inside wall of the home West Orange Habitat for Humanity is building for them.
Photo by Liz RamosBuilding community
Unlike most people who move into a new area, Easley already knows who her neighbors will be as they all are in Habitat classes together. There are six other homes being built on Edgeway Drive along with Easley’s.
When all the families are moved in, Easley can foresee block parties, neighborly cookouts and other activities with the neighbors.
When one of them is struggling, they support one another — they all are in similar situations.
“We’re all trying for the same goal so we’re (one another’s) cheerleaders, and I like that,” Easley said. “It’s a sense of family, and family means a lot to me since I don’t have a family.”
While volunteers from Matthew’s Hope and West Orange Habitat came together Saturday, Oct. 18, to work on the Edgeway homes, Easley shared her story with volunteers so they could understand their work was making a tangible impact on someone’s life. It also gave her an opportunity to talk to others in the Matthew’s Hope program to provide encouragement and hope.
“I hopefully encouraged them and let them know that (the rough times) it’s only today,” she said. “Two-and-one-half years seemed like a long time while I was walking through it, but now, it didn’t seem that long at all, and it was well worth it.”
Knowing two local nonprofits have helped her when she needed it most, Easley said she feels the need to pay it forward.
“I intend to pay it forward to other people that are in the same scenario that don’t know this is the next right step to take, and God brings people in my life that need that,” she said. “It took Scott’s hard hand to get it through my head, and it took the grace and the gentle care of Habitat to get me to the finish line.”