The local Habitat for Humanity home now under construction is receiving a boost from a local Lions Club and Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) for special equipment.

LCIF has approved a $13,750 matching grant for the home on South Pearl Street in Albert Lea. The grant is designed to expand home ownership opportunities for disabled individuals (or families in which a member has a serious disability) who could not otherwise afford decent housing. Habitat for Humanity has partnered with the Albert Lea LakeView Lions Club on the grant project.

According to Connie Smith of the Freeborn-Mower Habitat for Humanity affiliate, the family for whom the home is being built, Jayline Adams and her children Chris and Heather, are all legally deaf.

The grant is being used to help with some of the special features the home needs, Smith said. These items include two-tone door bells with strobe lights; shake-up fire and smoke detectors; carbon monoxide detectors with strobe lights; and a weather alert system.

Because this is a matching grant, Habitat for Humanity and the Lions are organizing fund-raisers. Raffle tickets are being sold on a playhouse. Tickets for the raffle will be available this week at local banks.

A golf outing, &uot;Drives Fore Homes,&uot; sponsored by Charter Communications, is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 20, at Green Lea Golf Course in Albert Lea. The rain date is Sept. 27.

The cost to take part has been lowered to $40 per person, which includes dinner. There will be a hole-in-one contest for a 2003 Ford Ranger Pickup, sponsored by Dave Syverson Ford. For more information on the outing, or for reservations, call Green Lea at 373-1061.

Lions Clubs International and Habitat for Humanity International launched a three-year partnership to build homes for individuals and families living with serious physical and mental disabilities. Between April 2000 and July 2002, this partnership enabled local Lions clubs and local Habitat affiliates to build 480 low-cost homes for people with disabilities who were also living in substandard or poverty housing. The program was initially set to end in 2002. However, due to the overwhelming popularity of this grant program, an extension was approved at the July 2002 LCIF Board of Trustees meeting in Osaka, Japan.

According to Judy Hagmann, project chairwoman for the LakeView Lions, the cause is a worthy one. &uot;I have been looking forward to working on a Habitat house for years, and that this opportunity has arisen for our Lions organization is fantastic,&uot; she said.

Habitat for Humanity is always looking for volunteers, Smith said. Anyone interested in committee work should call the Habitat for Humanity office at (507) 433-1349. Anyone interested in helping to build the home should stop by the building site on South Pearl Street in the mornings and ask for Wayne Hanson.

(Contact Geri McShane at lifestyles @albertleatribune.com, or call 379-3436.)