...Our Story

As Habitat for Humanity builds go, 23 Dunlop Avenue was kind of unique.

"Annie's House"

In 2010, flooding made Brodie Avenue uninhabitable. The City of Yorkton in conjunction with the Province, bought up all the properties. Most of the houses were condemned and demolished to make way for a floodwater retention pond.

Anne Woluschuk's house was salvageable, though, and that led to a great community effort to provide a family with affordable housing of their very own.

Donna Evans, general manager of the Yorkton Housing Corporation, and Marg Harper of the Yorkton and District Nursing home worked with Annie to find her a new place to live.

Meanwhile, the City made a deal with Habitat for Humanity to rescue Annie's house and move it to a new location on Dunlop Avenue.

The Family

Now Habitat Yorkton had a home, but no family to live in it. The organization opened up the application process.

Anatolii Kolesov, a recent immigrant from Ukraine, said he had heard of Habitat, but thought the program was only for Canadians. Enter Laverne Rawlick, who knew the family and helped them through the application process.

Four years ago, Anatolii moved his wife Oksana and young family from Ukraine to find a better life for their children. But it was not easy in his new land. Providing for the family meant a series of rental properties that were far from adequate.

One apartment they lived in only had two bedrooms. "There were four kids plus my two parents so we all had to share a room," said eldest daughter Anastasia.

And the house they were renting in Yorkton before Habitat came along was so tiny, the family couldn't even eat together. Anatolii took most of his meals standing up.

When the family found out they had been chosen for Annie's house, they couldn't believe it, Anatolii said.

"I still can't believe it," he said just last week.

Habitat

Because the Dunlop build was an unusual one, the Kolesov's were unable to put in their 500 hours of sweat equity on their own house, so they continue to volunteer in the community in other ways.

Oksana volunteers at the hospital and Anatolii has been helping out around the Church. Even Oksana's sister Vera, visiting from Ukraine has been helping out selling tickets for the Hyundai for Habitat contest.

Last week, Habitat Yorkton broke ground on its latest project. In the spirit of paying it forward, the Kolesovs are ready to go to work.

We will be there, Anatolii said.