TVA To Sponsor Five Habitat Homes in Tennessee Valley

January 29, 2008

TVA will honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by building five Habitat for Humanity homes – one each in Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis and two in the Muscle Shoals Ala., area.

TVA employees and their families, TVA customers and their employees, TVA retirees, and Habitat for Humanity representatives and other volunteers in the Tennessee Valley will help build the homes. The houses will be constructed from March through July.

“This year’s ‘Building the Dream’ project is part of TVA’s ongoing tribute to the life and legacy of Dr. King and his commitment to volunteer service and racial and economic equality,” said TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore. “With the help of our customers, retirees and the Habitat for Humanity organization, TVA employees can share Dr. King’s dream by building homes to improve the quality of life for five deserving families in the Tennessee Valley.”

This is the second consecutive year that TVA employees will help construct Habitat homes in cities across the Valley, and it is the sixth year to help construct a Habitat home in Knoxville.

One of the houses in the Muscle Shoals area will be a solar home. The University of North Alabama applied for and received a federal grant to install photovoltaic panels on the home to help generate electricity.

TVA is working with its power distributors to certify the other four Habitat structures as Energy Star homes. With the homes meeting Energy Star energy- efficiency certifications, homeowners will save money on their monthly power bills.

The Habitat homes will be built from March through July with most of the work being done during weekends.

Additional information about each project is available.

Qualified Habitat homeowners contribute hundreds of hours of "sweat equity" by working on the job-site, attending one year of budget classes, and participating in home maintenance and construction programs.

Habitat invites people of all backgrounds, races and religions to build houses together in partnership with families in need. Habitat has built more than 225,000 houses around the world, providing more than 1 million people in more than 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter. Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, decent houses with the help of the homeowner-partner families. Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable loans. The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments are used to build still more Habitat houses.

TVA is the nation’s largest public power provider and is completely self- financing. TVA provides power to large industries and 159 power distributors that serve approximately 8.8 million consumers in seven southeastern states. TVA also manages the Tennessee River and its tributaries to provide multiple benefits, including flood damage reduction, navigation, water quality and recreation.

Media Contact

Jim Allen, Knoxville, (865) 632-7453
TVA News Bureau, Knoxville, (865) 632-6000

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