By Marc Katz

Staff Writer

BUTLER TWP., Montgomery County — Stillwater United Methodist Church, where Holly Adkins joined and volunteered, asked for 120 people to show up on a recent Saturday to help build the frames for her new Habitat for Humanity house.

About 300 people showed up. The frames were moved to the build site in Union on a plat of land donated by another congregant.

“We had so many people, we used some of them to clean up our church yard and put down some mulch,” said pastor Duane Anders. “It was a huge day for us. It was our fifth Habitat build, but the first for a person in our congregation. When you’re doing it for one of your own, that does add to it.”

Adkins, who grew up in Riverside and graduated from Stebbins High School in 1996, said she altered her lifestyle in 2008, when she graduated from RETS (now Fortis College), moved out of Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority property to be back with her children (who were living with her mother in Riverside) and took a job with iBoomerang.com, a web company based in Vandalia.

Her association with Stillwater began the year before, when she held a birthday party for one of her children there. Eventually, she did volunteer intern work for the church, liking it so much, she joined when she became employed.

Then she found Habitat for Humanity, passed all the classes needed to apply for a house and, “got my life back in order.

“I had gone through a pretty bad separation,” Adkins said. She had lived with one partner for a long time, but when the association ended, “I returned to the street.”

When her fourth child was born, Adkins found herself wanting to make a change. She wanted to live with all her children — Tessa, 14; Kamen, 12; Shayanna, 10 and Trevor, 4.

All the children will move from the Mad River school district to Northmont schools.

“Stillwater opened their arms for me even though I was separated from the kids’ dad and I was on the street for some time and I was in low income housing and all that,” Adkins said. “They accepted me in.”

“My life has taken a turn for the better. I’m ecstatic. And the build, mind you, the Dayton Air Show was going on that day, and for them to come out the morning of that and frame the house was amazing. I’m grateful. I’m more confident there is a higher power.

“There are people who really care. There are people out there.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.