Karyne Besso has been volunteering with the Kemptville ReStore for over four years, and has volunteered with other various organizations for over 25 years. She started volunteering with Habitat Greater Ottawa on some home retrofits after she retired in 2013, and once the Kemptville ReStore opened, she began volunteering there. Being eager to know more about Habitat, she volunteered to become a member of the family selection committee, and has been helping to select families for our homes for two years.

Karyne wanted to help on our Cardinal build, and suggested that there was a more efficient way to organize our volunteers, using an online sign-up system. Working with our builder, Karyne set up and maintained the sign-up application for our volunteers during the entire build.

When the ReStore shut down in March due to Covid-19, all her volunteering paused. Karyne is a great sewer and quilter, and soon friends and family began to ask her to make masks for them, since they were not readily available. After giving away almost 150 masks, Karyne came up with the idea of marketing these through HFHTI as a fundraiser. With help from several more Habitat volunteers from the Kemptville store, they have made and sold over 1,200 facemasks! They will continue to have facemasks available at both of the ReStores until the end of the year, including seasonally themed masks. Karyne has an enormous sense of community, and a can-do attitude. Thank you Karyne for all you do for HFHTI!

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