Making a Difference: Utah County organization building homes and lives in Guatemala
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- Hirsche Homes volunteers assist people in Guatemala through building new homes in the country.
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- Hirsche Homes volunteers pose for a photo with a family in Guatemala.
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- Hirsche Homes volunteers build a home in Guatemala.
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- A family stands outside a home built by Hirsche Homes in Guatemala.
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- Darrel L. Hammon
Born and raised in Alpine, Chris Mickelsen has been in real estate since 2013 when he returned from living in Amsterdam for a couple of years while managing international business for a crafting company. For Mickelsen, it was too much traveling.
“My father-in-law, Will Jones, a broker at Pine Valley Real Estate, offered me a job,” Mickelsen said. “It was a good fit for my family and his family. It has been educational.”
In 2009, Mickelsen, his brother-in-law, two other real estate agents and his father-in-law decided they wanted to go to Guatemala after Jones, a long-time board member with Hirsche Smiles, came back from that country and said basic needs there were not being met.
“The first couple of years, we went down and tried to figure out what we should be doing. Fortunately, during one of the visits, we connected with Antonio Salguero,” Mickelsen said. “He has just been wonderful and became the in-country director and boots-on-the ground person for us. We discovered that people needed homes, so we organized Hirsche Homes.”
The first order of business was creating relationships with the communities where they wanted to build. Salguero developed incredible relationships with mayors and other community officials in various Guatemalan cities. It was not an easy process, but Salguero took it in stride.
“I meet with city officials and their social workers, who also work as poverty specialists,” Salguero said. “They help us find people in their communities who are in real need of a home. Most people live in very small homes with multiple families. Our goal is to get families into their own home.”
Then, for several weeks, Salguero meets with and selects potential families, determines where some of the materials can be purchased locally, and assesses the difficulty of transporting and storing the materials until Hirsche Homes arrives.
While Salguero is doing his work, Mickelsen is coordinating the logistics from the Utah side. “It’s a challenge to organize a trip for 20 to 25 people, select hotels, figure out the food, gather materials and determine transportation and other organizational things,” Mickelsen said.
Prior to the group coming, Salguero’s local crew has already laid the cement floor, built cinder block walls and gathered other building materials. Once onsite, the group divides into four or five teams of four to five people, each with a team lead who has construction expertise.
“Once on site,” Mickelsen said, “we begin building Monday through Thursday. On most trips, we construct between 20 to 25 homes. One trip, we built 52 homes, which was extremely taxing. Since we began in 2011, we have built over 300 homes.”
Initially, Hirsche Homes did roof renovations and patched homes. The first homes had dirt floors. Then something extraordinary happened. They noticed children crawling around in the dirt, and Mickelsen started doing research on the differences between a dirt floor and a cement floor.
“The research statistics about getting kids out of the dirt onto cement was mind-boggling. We discovered that children moving from dirt floors onto cement floors actually increased literacy and decreased diarrhea, which is caused by parasites in the dirt,” Mickelsen said. “A representative on the trip from Gerber Construction told the owners what we were doing and asked them about cement floors, and they said they could help. We transitioned to cement flooring, and the houses have progressed over time.”
All volunteers pay their own way, including food, hotel, other expenses. They all arrive by Sunday morning to be ready to go the home building sites. They haul all their own tools: two saws, three or four drills, four battery-powered nail guns with nails, special screws, solar lighting and other equipment.
During the week, the construction leads show their teams how to build the homes based on a simple building plan. They then do all the framing, build the roof and put on the siding, either wood or metal, and insert a window if the families want it. Also, the families receive a giant food bag to take to their new homes.
The communities are highly appreciative of what Hirsche Homes is doing in Guatemala. Sometimes communities give land to build on. Community members help haul materials to the sites and even bring lunch and drinks. After some projects, the city throws a big party for the group at city hall. “They often bring gifts and have traditional dances,” Mickelsen said. “We have been telling them, though, that they don’t need to do that for us.”
Funding for any foundation is tricky and often challenging. Hirsche Homes receives partial funding from the Alpine Living Nativity, an annual event that has been going on for several years. “All proceeds go to charity,” Mickelsen said. “It is a wonderful event that thousands attend. Others donate to us.”
Hirsche Homes has learned some valuable lessons along the way. “We have learned where and what to eat, the best places to stay, where to purchase materials,” Mickelsen said. “We don’t want people to get sick because of eating certain types of food. We also try to build the houses in the same safe areas. We want to be safe in all aspects of our trip.”
According to both Mickelsen and Mark Tidwell, a contractor and a member of the board of directors, they often experience “Guatemala Miracles.”
One miracle happened when one of the teenagers who came with his family to work thoroughly enjoyed his time there. A few years later, he received a call to return to the same area to serve as a church missionary. He was able to return and talk to some of the people whose homes he helped build. They call those homes “las casas de Utah” (Utah homes).
The differences Hirsche Homes has made are tangible. “We know our concrete floors cut sickness by 70%. No longer do they have to sleep with bugs on damp floors or experience water running through the homes when rainstorms come,” Tidwell said.
Both Mickelsen and Tidwell said building homes in Guatemala is not just building homes for families. The homes give families a boost; they feel protected and even feel safe enough to leave their homes because their homes now have locks on them.
One lasting difference is that volunteers become family and have life-changing experiences. “We spend a week together, and the core group has really come together and keeps getting bigger and bigger every year,” Mickelsen said. “Challenges have happened to some of us, and this group has helped those who needed the help.”
The number of people who want to go continues to rise. “People who go with us are our friends and their friends, our neighbors who want to serve,” Mickelsen said. “It’s a good problem to have, but it has grown to where we don’t have room for everyone.”
People return to help Hirsche Homes for various reasons. For many who go, this trip is a sacrifice. “I keep returning because there is such a camaraderie among the people who go,” Tidwell said, “and I feel a sense of doing my Heavenly Father’s work, which is the most rewarding.”
In conversations about what he does in Guatemala, Tidwell hears comments like, “Why not do it for our neighbors here in the U.S.?” “My answer is pretty simple,” Tidwell said. “Most people here do have the means to change. Down there, they don’t have the opportunity or even the means to change the situation that they are in.”
Mickelsen has a similar reason to do what he does. “Honestly, we live in affluent areas. In Guatemala, we see how the majority of the world lives. For me, it is a reset of what is important,” Mickelsen said. “I see these people burst into tears when you show them their house, a 16-foot by 13-foot with a cement floor and maybe a window. People there have nothing, yet they are happy with what they have and receive. For the people, their new homes are life-changing for them.”
For more information about Hirsche Homes, contact Mickelsen at 385-208-9935 or visit their Instagram site. Donations can be made through Venmo @hirschehomes.
