404 Maple, Champaign. See images on Flickr.

Gant Family

Lamar Crawford, Jr. loves puppies. The energetic four-year-old has a five-month-old pug named Miaggi whose energy nearly matches his own. "He’s a handful, so full of energy", remarks his mother, Antonette Gant of her son, who is now chasing the puppy around the living room.

Antonette Gant and her son Lamar – who is named after his father who is now deceased – live in a small, very tidy, and unassuming apartment in Champaign. They have been in Champaign for three years now after moving from Springfield.

Antonette was born in Seattle and moved around a lot when she was younger, but this prospective Habitat homeowner is looking forward to settling down in her new Habitat home. If all goes as planned, they will be settled in by December 1, 2004.

That's the deadline required by a $10,000 grant received in March from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, to kick-start this Lutheran home-build. With $50,000 more in funds to raise, and a building effort to organize, we will need to act fast to make the Gant home a reality.

Antonette is a press operator who works the third shift at Rantoul Products, a company that manufactures car interior parts for GM, Mitsubishi, and other companies. After trimming plastic molds coming off assembly lines, she packs parts up for shipping.

The third shift has made for an unconventional day for Antonette and her son. While many of us are used to "9 to 5" types of days five days a week, for the last year and a half, Antonette’s day has begun at 10 p.m. with work and ended at 6 a.m. with the end of her shift - working six, and sometimes even seven, days a week. The time spent between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. is carefully planned out to maximize quality time spent with her son.

After returning home at 6 a.m., Antonette can be found cleaning for the next two hours. At 8 a.m., she hops in the shower, then lays down from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.. At 2, she picks up Lamar from daycare, makes them some food, and tries to match Lamar’s energy as they play until about 6 p.m.. The day I caught up with them, they were planning to head out to see a movie. At 6 p.m., it’s time for Lamar’s bath, then the pair both takes a short nap. At 9 p.m., Lamar is once again dropped off at daycare or at his grandparents' house, and Antonette heads up to Rantoul for the start of the third shift.

As she describes this rigorous schedule to me, I feel exhausted. Lamar’s father passed away in a tragic accident in September 2003. Between working third shift and trying to keep up with Lamar Jr., it’s hard to believe she has time to do much else. But she tells me she aspires to go to school, and loves to learn whatever she can. She is aiming to attend a one to two year radiology program at Parkland soon, and once done, hopes to continue going to school to learn even more.

In fact, one of the attractions for her to Habitat’s program is the requirement that she attend homeowner and financial management classes. She is very interested in learning more about money management and home improvement, particularly landscaping and tiling courses.

Antonette’s passion for learning will make her a great worker as she puts in her required 250 hours of "sweat equity" on the home. As we talk about this, Lamar chimes in and wants to know if he can help, too. I ask him if he has a tool belt, and he looks questioningly at his mother. "He has a hard time understanding the process of actually building the house," she tells me. He wants for her to take him there – to the new house, and doesn’t yet understand that it still needs to be built and that he and his mother will be helping in that process.

While Antonette’s mother lives in California, her grandparent’s are close by in Homer, Illinois, and this helps her a great deal. Her grandfather is a pastor and her grandmother is a teacher and she is grateful that Lamar gets to spend time with them. He aspires to be a basketball player, and tells me that he loved to play basketball with his dad. I ask him to show me some of his moves, and he jumps around a bit for me with his arms in the air. His mom then asks him what else he might want to be. "A police," he replies, now racing a toy car around the carpet.

As Antonette and I watch him play, I ask her what Habitat for Humanity has meant to her. Without missing a beat she says, "You have to crawl before you walk. Habitat is helping me get established as a homeowner, and that’s a great opportunity. Without Habitat, I'm not sure I could have done it."