It's not unusual for our staff to give up weekends or evenings at home, to go the extra mile to help our programs excel.

But for every family who builds a Self Help home, each high-risk kid who achieves an impossible dream, every community we help get back on its feet, each scholarship we award and every unit of affordable housing we build or save, there are scores of dedicated volunteers.

Volunteers like Mary Ann Byhre, who every year throws her energies into making our scholarship fundraiser - the "Gifts of the Garden" South Kitsap Garden Tour - a success.

Or the friends and relatives and other community volunteers who work side-by-side with Self Help families from Port Orchard to Poulsbo, from Bainbridge Island to Kingston, in the rain, snow, and cold to help them build their homes.

There's former Kitsap County Treasurer Sharon Shrader, art gallery owner Amy Burnett, developer Tim Ryan, Bremerton Chamber of Commerce President Mike Levi, and dozens of others who have worked for over a decade to build support for revitalizing downtown Bremerton.

There's Bank of America, KeyBank, the National Equity Fund, the Washington State Housing Trust Fund, USDA-Rural Development, the Kitsap County Development Block Grant program and many others who fund our developments and programs.

From the Central Kitsap School District to Study Central tutor Mary Abo, community organizations and individuals have made the difference for kids in our after school programs.

To all these people and organizations, and many, many more than we have space to mention, thank you for your commitment and work to build stronger communities for all of us.

Wendy and John's children sit in front of their new home. "Your credit report rates you from zero to 1,000 (which is perfect). We were at 33," Wendy says. Five years later, their credit rating was 771, thanks to KCCHA's Family Self Sufficiency Program and a lot of hard work. KCCHA is now a HUD Certified Housing Counseling Agency, thanks to its track record with families like John and Wendy's.