The Applers are such believers in the business power of Second Chance that they have dedicated a page to the nonprofit on their company website—and even became donors themselves when they were building their personal home in 2019.

“We don’t like to throw anything away, so knowing that usable materials are getting reused to cost effectively improve other structures was important to us,” Lisa says. “It was just as important to see that our donation was going to help people who are looking for a better life. We’d interact with the crews every day, and you could tell how much they appreciated and cared about the work they were being trained to do. They were willing to go above and beyond to do everything we needed.”

That included returning to the job site when Lisa and Steve discovered more than they bargained for.

“We’d originally planned to leave the first floor of the home intact and build on it,” Steve explains. “But when we got down to that point, the structure was so poorly built that there was no way we were going to build a new house on it. So I called Second Chance and told them: ‘I know the scope of your work was to stop at the first floor, but we need to keep going.’ And they came back out right away and did exactly what we needed, even if it meant rearranging their schedules.”