Habitat for Humanity and Delta Air Lines dedicate Federal Way home | Slideshow

Mireya Valdovinos’s 16-year-old daughter Jasmine used to be so embarrassed about the family’s living conditions that she told her friends she lived in another home up the street from where they actually lived –- the one with the ‘red door.’ She would have rides drop her off at the red door house to hide their poor living conditions.

October 30, 2014 4:51 pm
Mireya Valdovinos stands with her children
Mireya Valdovinos stands with her children

Mireya Valdovinos’s 16-year-old daughter Jasmine used to be so embarrassed about the family’s living conditions that she told her friends she lived in another home up the street from where they actually lived –-  the one with the ‘red door.’ She would have rides drop her off at the red door house to hide their poor living conditions.

But on Wednesday, Oct. 29 employees from Delta Air Lines and Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County handed over the keys to a newly renovated home to an incredibly excited to Valdovinos and her three children.

Valdovinos’s only request when she learned that she qualified to be a Habitat homeowner was that it have a red door like the home her daughter always wished they lived in. On Oct. 29, her daughter’s wish came true; the house was completed with a red door and it is a place the family is proud to call home.

The house was entirely gutted, and for the past six weeks, more than 345 Delta employees -— from baggage handlers to flight attendants to Delta’s Seattle vice president —- have rolled up their sleeves four days a week to transform the Federal Way house. Projects have included drywall and flooring inside the home, installing new kitchen cabinets and appliances, siding and painting the exterior of the home and shed, building a fence and landscaping.

This home represents major milestones for both Habitat Seattle King-County and Delta. For Habitat Seattle-King County, it is the 400th home that they have built, renovated or repaired in King County, and the 50th home in the Federal Way in partnership with the city of Federal Way as part of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. For Delta, it is the 200th home that Delta employees have worked on in partnership with Habitat, both nationally and internationally

The Federal Way project is part of Delta’s nationwide initiative this fall, where more than 2,300 Delta employees worked on eight homes in six different cities, including Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis / St. Paul, New York and Seattle.

Photos by Rebecca Ellison Photography, www.rebeccaellison.com.