Macon Chose Me is a photo series by DSTO Moore highlighting residents who weren’t born in Macon but actively chose to move here and enjoy positively representing the community.

Interviewed by Haleigh Dearden | Photo by DSTO Moore 

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? 

My husband and I both grew up in Tallahassee. We went to Florida State, although we didn’t meet until we were in college. And my parents grew up in Tallahassee. We really are the first ones to kind of venture out on a more permanent basis.  

What brought you to Macon? 
We have lived here almost 20 years now. We moved here for my husband to go to law school and thought we’d be here for three years and turn around and go back home. We were deciding between Macon and New Orleans for law school. We went to visit New Orleans and had been there several times, and it just wasn’t a great match. And then we came to visit Mercer Law School, and from the minute we got into the elevator, we felt very welcome. All the staff was great, the professors were great, all the students that he met were just really welcoming. 

You clearly chose to stay more than three years! What made Macon choose you?  

I ended up going to Mercer as well, got my MBA, and then I started working at Goodwill and we settled into our church at Vineville United Methodist. We really just fell in love. And it was like, Macon kind of gave us a big hug. It was like, you’re here now, you’re just part of us. When he finished law school, he got a job offer with a firm that he’s still at now. We just couldn’t imagine leaving. It was just like we were home. This was where we were supposed to be. Shortly after law school, we found out I was pregnant with our first, with our son. I think it really hit the day that my parents said, “You know, you’re at home in Macon. We can’t imagine you ever coming back at this point. Macon is where you’re supposed to be.” 

What accomplishments are you proud of in this community?  

One of my accomplishments would be helping Macon become home for other people. I’ve now been at Habitat for just over eight years. Some of our Habitat homeowners grew up here, others have moved here recently, but they’ve all decided to become homeowners here. I feel like they’re kind of saying, Macon is where I want to be, too.  

Another accomplishment is having a family that is a part of Macon as well. My kids love it here. They love to go downtown. They love to tell people what they’re doing in the community. They have friends that say, “Oh well, I haven’t been downtown to eat.” Then they can rattle off a whole list of restaurants there. Like: “You need to go here and here, this is what you’re missing by not going downtown.” Kind of by way of us being here and raising our kids here, we’re creating more ambassadors for Macon.  

Can you describe your role at Habitat for Humanity?  

I’m the executive director there. We have a team of 11, so it’s a good size nonprofit organization. My work here is to help people achieve their dream of home ownership. Whether that’s through raising money, building partnerships in the community, working with volunteers on our job site, hosting events, speaking about our work, advocating for affordable home ownership. We know that your home is really important. When you become a homeowner, you have this tremendous asset, and you’re changing generational wealth. You’re really setting up your family for a success in the future. My role is to do whatever I can to help families get to that point. 

So what are some ways people can get involved in the Macon community?  

Showing up is a big one. There are so many things to do in Macon, and there are a lot of weekends or weekdays where we’ll feel very torn because there’s a lot of different places that we want to be at the same time. When we first came to visit Macon, we came on a Sunday afternoon. We drove around and there was nobody downtown. It was kind of like a ghost town, and now you go downtown on Sunday and you can’t get a parking space – which is great. This event may not be perfect. It may be hot outside. There may be a line, or it may be cold, you know, but whatever it is – just find something that’s interesting and show up. I think it’s just people making that conscious decision of saying, “I’m just going to go check it out.”  

What is your favorite thing about this community?  

My favorite thing is that people have stopped saying, “Oh, we can’t do that.” There’s still some doubters, but Macon as a whole has said, “We can do that!” Nothing’s impossible. There’s always somebody that’s willing to try something and people that are willing to get behind an effort. There are people that care so much about this community, and they care about its history, and they care about its future. They’re willing to just do what it takes to make it a great place to be.  

How can others in Central Georgia help you and Habitat’s mission? 

There are a lot of different ways you can get involved. One is obviously donations. We take monetary donations, in-kind donations, and donations to our ReStore. But there’s also volunteering – whether you’ve worked in construction your whole life or never picked up a hammer. There’s a place for everybody on our job sites and within our organization. Then, encouraging people to be homeowners. We find right now that our homeowners are working at local hospitals, they’re working in the school system, they’re working in local small businesses.  

There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about our program. Encourage somebody to look into this idea of homeownership as a way to improve their lives, their families’ lives, and our entire community. I think giving that reference of, “Have you checked into Habitat?” Most of our homeowners find us through word of mouth. And helping us think bigger. We know that the need is tremendous in Macon. There are so many people that are stuck in between this gap of renting and homeownership, because we need more quality, affordable homeownership opportunities. Look for ways to continue to fill in those gaps and ask how can we as Habitat do more? How can we serve more people?