St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity held a ceremony Monday to honor their volunteers.

Presidential Volunteer Service Award hours are based on time volunteered within a year. Volunteers who contributed 100 to 249 hours were recognized as bronze achievement level recipients, those contributing 250 to 499 hours were recognized as silver achievement recipients and those with 500 or more hours were recognized at the gold level.

The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award is for those who volunteer more than 4,000 hours of service in their lifetime.

One of those Lifetime Award recipients, Hilton Sander, has been volunteering with Habitat for over seven years building houses and working in the ReStore.

“Building a home for someone that’s never had one, I can’t think of anything better to give someone than to give them a home,” Sander said. “I just love doing it, I guess it’s what God intended me to do is help other people.”

Other Lifetime Award recipients honored Monday were Don Mahaffy, John Ford, Claude “Jake” Jacobs and Ivan Nicholson.

St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Cate Manley said volunteers are the lifeblood of the organization.

“As a non-profit organization, the only way that we’re able to accomplish as much as we have is through the work of volunteers and sponsorships and groups that come in, they don’t all come in 150 hours a year… but every little bit helps,” Manley said. “We have 66 homes existing right here in St. Joe now and we anticipate nine homes in the next 12 months to be built and blessed and that’s only through faith and the volunteers.”

For more information on St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity or to find out how to become a volunteer, go to stjoehabitat.org or call (816) 279-2552.