It was about nine years ago when single mother Tanya Legare began her process into getting into her own home.

But Thursday afternoon, she, her daughters 12-year-old Brooklynn and nine-year-old Chelsea, and dignitaries broke ground in front of the foundation of her new home thanks to Habitat for Humanity. Legare has waited for a long time to have her own home.

“I would have never guess that I’d be here,” Legare said, a few feet and a few months away from where she will raise her family. “Once I became single, with two girls, I didn’t know where I was going to go or where I would end up. I think it was in 2010 that I applied and I just didn’t have the qualifications to move forward, but they did help me see where I needed to go.”

She had friends and family talk her into reapplying and when she did get the call, she said they were ecstatic to be able to move into a newly built home.

“I did not think that I would be owning a house in this day and age,” Legare said.

Legare and her girls will move into the home as early as the end of the year after hours of sweat equity, but the process took several years for her.

People in her friends and family encouraged Legare to keep trying.

“Now that it’s here, I suggest that others don’t give up,” she said. “Because once you’re here, the feeling is indescribable. Knowing that within a year’s time, it’s going to be mine.”

The home, which is on Ominica Street West, is the ninth build in Moose Jaw, will be worked on over the summer with sweat equity thanks to volunteers and in-kind donations.

The land for the home was donated anonymously and partners for the home includes SaskWater, RBC, and Mosaic.

Bill Harris, Habitat for Humanity committee chair, said it doesn’t get old being able to help families get into homes, even through he’s been with the group since the formation of the local chapter in 2008.

“It reinvigorates me to do this family introduction, and after the home is finished, to do the key presentation, because every single one of those families, I’m sure, never in their wildest dreams in the last number of years especially envisioned owning into their own home,” Harris said.

It’s a hand-up, not a hand out, Harris said.

Habitat for Humanity Moose Jaw has received about $65,000 in funding from the provincial and federal governments.

There will be some fundraisers coming for the organization, beginning with April 24’s Taste of Saskatchewan Banquet and Fundraiser at the Sportsman Centre. He said they are also looking for volunteers for the home, which can be offered at habitatregina.ca/habitat-moose-jaw

Legare offers some advice for single mothers.

“Your children look up to you. They’re the ones that push you, and they will give you grey hair. But everything that us parents do, single or not, is always for them,” Legare said.