Erika Zimmerman is director of development at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence and is also a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, where she mentors families.

There is nothing like being invited to someone’s house for a home-cooked meal. Especially when your hosts built their house with their own hands.

Erika Zimmerman, a volunteer family partner with Lawrence Habitat for Humanity, remembers the gamut of emotions she felt as a dinner guest in the new home of the family she mentored on their road to owning a Habitat for Humanity house. She cheered them on as they logged 225 hours of sweat equity on their home build and others, as they picked tile and flooring for their home, and as they signed a stack of closing papers that meant the home was finally really theirs.

“It’s a very humbling experience to be in the presence of someone who has set and reached a goal like this,” Zimmerman said. “To sit back in their glory and their pride. It’s hard to describe. They put a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears into that house. I was like a proud mom.”

Since she began volunteering for Habitat for Humanity three years ago, Zimmerman has been paired with two Habitat families, mentoring them from the day their application for a Habitat house was approved until they moved into their new home, built by the family and an army of community volunteers.

Long before Zimmerman became a family partner, she helped swing a hammer on a Habitat group build with her co-workers from the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, where she is the director of grants. That day spent hanging drywall did more than give her blisters. It left her enthusiastic about the international nonprofit organization that builds affordable housing for low-income families around the world.

The Lawrence Habitat affiliate, launched in 1989, is about to complete its 83rd house.

It was Zimmerman’s passion for the people she works with as a family partner that inspired Maddie Hinds, community outreach coordinator for Habitat, to select Zimmerman as Habitat’s United Way Roger Hill Volunteer Center’s 2012 volunteer of the year for direct service.

“She has been a phenomenal example of what a family partner does,” Hinds said. “Our entire office is so grateful to her.”

Volunteers are the backbone of Habitat, Hinds said. “Part of what keeps our homes so affordable is they are built primarily by volunteer labor. The majority of our volunteers build, but our board of directors is all volunteer, and all of our committees are volunteer.” Volunteers also staff the Habitat ReStore, which sells donated home and building supplies.

For Zimmerman, the best part about volunteering for Habitat has been the relationships she’s formed with the partner families, friendships that began before the first nail was hammered and lasted after the welcome mat was proudly placed on the completed home’s front porch.

“The thing that amazes me most about these families is their resiliency,” Zimmerman said. “They have been through some crazy obstacles. And they have turned their lives around to the place they can afford a house. It’s inspired me to get my stuff together in my life and set some great, grand goals.”

For information about volunteering for Lawrence Habitat for Humanity, email Hinds at Maddie@lawrencehabitat.org.