Closing out a week of stories about homes, we travel to Guatemala. However, this story encompasses many countries, because many Amway distributors and employees were part of this project.

It started with a group of Amway distributors from the United States, who travel to Guatemala every year to help build homes through Habitat for Humanity.

Last February, the program was brought to a greater scale, when Amway distributors and Amway Guatemala invited the wider Amway family to participate. Amway distributors and employees from the United States, Mexico, Barbados, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Colombia and El Salvador took part in the project, constructing 12 homes for families.

Amway also contributed $500,000 toward the purchase of land, matching the $250,000 gift of Tim Foley, longtime Amway distributor and Amway Founders Council member. This will enable more than 40 homes to be constructed over the next 5 years.

This program was the inspiration for the launch of a formal partnership between Amway and Habitat for Humanity that stretched among the five other countries whose stories we covered this week.

Look for more projects in 2012!

In November, the Amway-Habitat for Humanity campaign extended to Costa Rica through a campaign that raised funds from the sale of select Amway products and through donations of a portion of annual renewal fees.

In total, $15,000 was collected by Amway Costa Rica and donated in November toward the construction of homes for families in Peñas Blancas, San Ramón de Alajuela. Amway volunteers helped in the construction of those homes.

Stay tuned for one of our largest Habitat for Humanity projects in Guatemala, which we will cover tomorrow!