The Garcia family poses in front of the home they can now call their own, thanks to Habitat for Humanity. In front are Maria Louisa and Jesus. Held behind them by their daughter, Jasmine, is granddaughter Gabriella. The Garcias are moving in after more than a year’s worth of work on the house at 513 E. 10th St.

With a few tears welling up in her eyes, Maria Louisa Garcia addressed the crowd in her living room.

Her living room.

At 513 E. 10th St. in Blue Earth on Sunday, a whole lot more than the brisk autumn breeze spilled into the Garcias’ home. Friends, neighbors and volunteers from the community filed up the porch steps and into a household of diversity, gathering together for the culmination of one family’s longtime dream.

And Garcia spoke, proclaiming thanks for the arduous, albeit rewarding, journey to taking ownership of the house surrounding her a home that, more than a year ago, became Habitat for Humanity of Faribault and Martin Counties’ latest local project.

“I never thought we’d be able to get this all done,” Garcia said, her Spanish translated by Pastor Tim Dahlin, of Fairmont. “I’m thankful to everyone.”

Habitat for Humanity director Staci Thompson hands over the keys to the remodeled house to new owners Jesus and Maria Louisa Garcia, during the dedication ceremony.

Presented with a key to the house and a bilingual Bible, a symbol of Habitat for Humanity’s commitment to “put God’s love into action,” Garcia and her family got one step closer to embracing their very own house a noted step up from their two-bedroom apartment in town and, more importantly, a place at which longtime community can be had.

After Blue Earth’s Rick and Barb Ristau donated the home, a Fifth Street property at the time, Habitat for Humanity began searching for families of interest.

It was not long afterward that Maria, by way of recommendation from Ismael Martinez, her colleague at the El Tio restaurant in town, had her family apply for Habitat’s help.

Thanks to a donation from Shirley Bartholomew and the Garcias’ passion to become homeowners, a partnership and a plan were formed, with the Ristaus’ intact home on track to be relocated and tidied up for future generations of use.

“We moved the house from Fifth Street to here last year,” said Linda Steinhauer, board president for the nonprofit’s Faribault and Martin County operation. “And this spring, a lot of the work was done, including a whole new basement.”

People enjoy some refreshments in the Garcias’ new kitchen.

Volunteering hours every Sunday over the course of several months alongside building committee chairman Bill Thompson, Garcia’s husband, Jesus, helped the family meet requirements for the partnership with Habitat, which supports construction of “simple, decent and affordable housing” nationwide.

And in Jesus’ eyes, all the work, from getting the house on stilts to fine-tuning the remodeled basement, was worth the wait.

“This is a fulfillment of all that I’ve dreamed for,” he said, smiling in front of his very first house guests at Sunday’s celebration.

Maria surely agreed.

When she first toured the home, in fact, she could not believe the place would be her family’s new residence.

“She never had a bathtub,” said Staci Thompson, executive director of the local Habitat. “When she saw the one here, she got in and danced in it.”

For the Garcias, whose dedicated home was slated for closing the week after the get-together, moving into the house offers quite a bit more than a bathtub, too.

Its two-story, three-bedroom space is a hefty expansion from the apartment from which they are transitioning, not to mention typical Habitat for Humanity homes, which are sometimes built from the ground up. The family will have a yard to themselves and a kitchen in which Maria, El Tio’s head cook, can embrace her culinary spirit, as well as separate rooms for kids Jasmine and Horacio.

“From our dreams, our faith and our hard work,” Pastor Dahlin said, “this house became a reality. It began as a stirring of our hearts and is now a beacon of God’s love.”

To the Garcias and those who surrounded them on their special day, one centered on the embrace of a new home, that much was very clear.

“It’s a pretty emotional day,” Thompson said. “This is what it’s all about putting faith and love into action.”

As Habitat representatives presented the family with a handful of donated gifts, from a set of china to Procter &?Gamble cleaning supplies, guests began to spread across the soon-to-be Garcia household.

And as they explored the rooms, tasting some of the food Maria prepared for the gathering, the Garcias smiled and followed along.

In their kitchen. Their living room. Their home.