HAC’s Annual Dinner Celebrates Those Making a Difference

The 2017 Home Depot Big Fix team. HAC is honoring Home Depot with the Making a Difference Award at its Annual Dinner in May.

HAC’s 44th Annual Dinner & Volunteer Recognition in May will have a decided Big Fix slant to it.  

Three of this year’s award winners have been heavily involved in the annual day of service in which HAC mobilizes over 200 volunteers to fundraise for the agency and to volunteer their time to make small home improvements for seniors, veterans and disabled homeowners in one town on Cape Cod every fall.

The Ninety Nine Restaurant & Pub, the recipient of the 2018 Business Partner Award; Mashpee Boy Scout Troop 36, the recipient of the Human Service Partner Award; and Home Depot, the recipient of the Making a Difference Award, all have lent their support to the Big Fix over the years.

Also being honored are Bernadette and Richard Waystack of Harwich, who have been chosen for the Volunteer of the Year Award. Since 2014, the couple have participated in the annual Bob Murray Housing with Love Walk, walking one end of the Cape to the other over the course of one week each July, to raise funds for HAC’s housing programs.

The pair were humbled by the honor, saying it is a “reminder to us of all the hard work so many people have done for decades to raise awareness and support for homelessness and housing insecurity on the Cape. We have just been two small cogs in the wheels carrying on and joining the fight in the best way we could.”

99 Restaurant & Pub staff cook burgers and hot dogs for Big Fix volunteers in Brewster.  The local restaurant is being recognized for its support of HAC with the Business Partner of the Year Award.

Since 2013, when HAC brought its Big Fix to Mashpee, Jim Kiley, the regional vice president at the 99 Restaurant & Pub, has generously donated his staff’s time and talents to cook lunch for the hundreds of volunteers who show up to the event.

Those volunteers have annually included Troop 36, which also started its involvement in the Big Fix that same year.

Assistant Scout Master John Cotton said the event is always among the most popular for those in the troop, which includes his son Christian. “It’s a rewarding feeling every time when we complete the project because the individuals we’re helping come out and tell us what it meant to them,” John said. “When you have 20 kids listening to [the homeowner] and no one is talking, you can see it in their faces. They are all choked up. It is intense and it is amazing.”

Home Depot is another organization that has lent its support to the Big Fix with employees from several of its Southeastern Massachusetts stores volunteering for the event. Last year, the Home Depot Foundation took that support a step further when it provided HAC with a $22,000 grant that went towards supplies for the Big Fix in Falmouth.

In addition to its involvement in the Big Fix, the Home Depot’s Hyannis store has served as a stepping stone for clients at HAC’s Angel House shelter to move forward in a positive direction. Several of the mothers who are recovering from substance abuse at the shelter have been hired at the store, giving them the confidence they need to help turn their lives around.