How JobNimbus & Habitat for Humanity Helped One Family Keep Their Home

A few years ago, Margie was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The treatment took a toll on her health, and it took a toll on her finances too. She fell behind, and the bills kept coming regardless.

Then her insurance company called. If she didn't cut down a tree and replace her roof, her coverage would be canceled. No coverage meant if anything happened to the house after that, a storm, a falling limb, a leak, she'd be paying for the damage entirely on her own. 

"I didn't have funds for anything," Margie said. "I didn't know where to turn for help."

The ask nobody wants to make

Habitat sees this same situation more often than people might expect. A home falls into disrepair, the owner lacks the financial resources to fix it, and asking for help can be its own hurdle.

"It's hard to ask for help and to know there's people that will step up and help you where you can't do it yourself," Margie said. "So it's fantastic that there’s people out there that will help you."

Habitat steps in, but can't do it alone

A local Habitat for Humanity group came out to assess the roof. The scope of the project was clear fast: this wasn't a patch job, it was a full replacement, and Habitat's own team was small.

"We cannot do a project like this with just two of us," one Habitat representative said.

Projects like Margie's depend on volunteer labor to happen at all. As another Habitat representative put it, they're what let the organization keep a steady flow of projects moving and maintain real impact in the community, year-round.

That's where JobNimbus came in. A crew of employees signed up for build day, working alongside the Habitat team and the roofing professionals coordinating the job.

"It's really important for us as a company that we give back to the community," said Ben Hodson, JobNimbus CEO. "We have multiple shifts going on for employees, and they get to sign up for the shift that they want to do. They come out on company time. We also pay for all the materials and support the project in that way as well. And everybody gets to do some real work out here."

What the work actually costs

One volunteer described the day less as a company outing and more as something personal.

"It's very rewarding. You're having a direct impact of keeping a family in their home and helping out on many different levels," they said. "Feels like a personal mission, just kind of using the skills that we've learned and giving it back to the community. That's the biggest thing."

JobNimbus employees spend their day-to-day around roofing, but usually from a distance: a support ticket, a sales call, a conversation about a contractor's business. Build day put them on the other side of that. They weren't hearing about a job, they were doing one, on a house that belonged to someone in need.

It also put them close to something easy to lose sight of from an office: what it actually means for a family to be waiting on a roof. Every contractor JobNimbus talks to on a normal day has a version of Margie somewhere on their schedule, a homeowner counting on the work getting done, and done right. Standing on that roof for a day is a different way of understanding what that actually feels like.

More than a roof

By the end of build day, Margie had a new roof, her tree was gone, and her insurance was safe. But ask her about it, and the roof isn't really the part that stays with her.

What she keeps coming back to is that she didn't know where to turn, and people turned up anyway. Strangers, mostly. People who didn't know her name until they were standing in her driveway.

Habitat for Humanity does this work all year, for families like Margie's. JobNimbus was glad to be the crew on this project, lending a hand.

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