Shenel Sandidge

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Shenel Sandidge of Maumelle is married to a pastor, but she has her own ministry, and it’s called Habitat for Humanity of Faulkner County.

“We’re all missionaries. … I’m a sharer. Habitat - I look at it as another ministry. People don’t listen to what you say; they look at what you do,” the organization’s executive director said, sitting in her second-floor office in downtown Conway.

It was touch and go whether Sandidge, 49, would make her home in Arkansas.

Sandidge was the second of seven children: five girls and two boys. She was born in New Orleans and lived there until she was 12, when her military stepfather moved the family to Seattle.

That’s where she met Carl, who had been in the Navy and had joined the Army National Guard, and the couple married in 1986.

He activated around the time of Desert Storm. After he came back to the States, he had 90 days off.

His father’s family was from Plumerville, Sandidge said, and in 1991 the couple came to a family reunion.

He decided he wanted to live in Arkansas, but Sandidge wasn’t having it.

“I said, ‘No, this is not Washington. I want to go back,’” she said.

It was her first time in Arkansas, and it was August.

“I said, ‘I can’t live down here; it’s too hot.’”

She took their three daughters, who were ages 10, 1 and 3 months, back to Washington.

Her husband continued to try to persuade her to move to Arkansas. They took a trip to Canada in September that year for their anniversary, and he tried to talk her into moving back with him.

Sandidge refused.

“When he came for Thanksgiving, he came with a moving truck,” she recalled, laughing. On Dec. 1, they drove straight to the house he had bought in Maumelle, counting on her to change her mind.

Sandidge said she wanted to be home with her girls - all five of them - which she had “in sets.”

Her oldest daughter is 31; the youngest is 11.

Sandidge said she always wanted to be a lawyer, and her family said she debated everything.

“I pretty much helped raise my brothers and sisters, and I defended them all the time,” she said.

Sandidge became a paralegal in 1993 by driving back and forth to weekend classes at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

She worked as an administrative assistant for the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission and researched briefs for Michael O’Malley, the administrative hearing officer.

“He was a proofer. He’d slice it up and dice it up,” she said.

One day he didn’t change a thing she wrote.

“I was so proud of myself,” she said, laughing.

She started a day care at her church, Greater Fellowship Christian in Conway, when her daughter ArRionda was a toddler.

“I was going to pass it on to the membership,” she said, but no one stepped up to take over.

Sandidge said that when she starts something, it’s her baby, “and if it’s not going to be nurtured and taken care of, I’d rather discontinue it.”

She’s the music minister at the church, and her husband is associate pastor.

She attended the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, still determined to become a lawyer, but she decided she wasn’t cut out for it.

“I’m a devout Christian, and if someone did something I knew was wrong, I couldn’t defend them,” Sandidge said.

She graduated in 2010 with a degree in public administration and a minor insociology and political science.

She had completed an internship with Court Appointed Special Advocates when she was at UCA and volunteered at Habitat for Humanity of Faulkner County. She became a board member in 2010 and later was asked to be secretary of the organization.

“I said, ‘You may want to think about that. I go over everything with a fine-tooth comb,’” Sandidge said.

It was “helping people that really need the hand up” that attracted her to Habitat for Humanity.

When a crisis hit the organization, she stepped up.

Former executive director Patricia Hoskins was charged April 16 with two counts of theft and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card, all misdemeanors. Board chairman Anthony Stanley said the money Hoskins was charged with misusing was not from restricted funds or donations used for building homes.

Sandidge handled all the executive director’s duties until she was hired in the position in March.

From the beginning, Sandidge said she quoted Galatians 6:1:

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou.”

“My philosophy is ‘By the grace of God, there go I,’” she said. “The organization is not about an individual. If my name is on it, I’m just as responsible as the next person. It wasn’t about dropping the ball, pointing fingers or passing the buck. We still had people out there to be served. We still had a home out there to finish. It was about coming together and restoring and moving for ward. We strapped up our boots and moved forward.

“As a board, I think we fairly, professionally handled it to the best of our ability. It could have been uglier.”

New financial safeguards were put in place, and Sandidge said she refuses to use an agency credit card for anything.

“I call if it’s $10 and bring receipts in,” she said. “I don’t write checks, nor do I sign them.

“I am also finance director at my church. I’ve been there 19 years, and I’ve been finance director for 16 of them. I have enough responsibility over there.”

Becoming director of Habitat has been an eye-opening experience, she said.

“Overwhelming, it has been,” she said. “I’ve stayed up many nights going through manuals.”

International Habitat sent notice that the Faulkner County Habitat is “in good standing,” Sandidge said.

Sandidge said the foundation is about to be poured for house No. 21, and home No. 22 will be a Women Build, using primarily women on the construction.

One of the biggest myths about Habitat for Humanity is that it gives homes away, Sandidge said.

“You have to have a job or income,” she said. Families must meet other qualifications, and background checks are done, Sandidge said.

Homeowners must take classes on topics such as budgeting. They must also provide sweat equity and help another family build a home, as well as work on their own.

Sandidge is quick to change out of her suits and pearls to pants and tennis shoes and get her hands dirty, too.

“[In March), we went in every neighborhood and cleaned up Habitat homes’ yards,” she said. “Habitat is more than building a house.We’re building lives, building communities, building families.”

She’s been in every Habitat homeowner’s house.

“It’s a whole process of helping them get ready to get in the house, then a whole other job to keep them in,” she said. “You’re introducing low-income families to a world they’ve never been in before. … I can’t call anybody and say the grass needs cutting; if I want a flower bed, I have to plant it.”

Sandidge s aid Habit at for Humanity of Faulkner County is partnering with the University of Central Arkansas for homeowners to take classes such as landscaping and gardening.

“I’m doing more on-site visits and talking to people and trying to bring our organization back to good standing in the community,” she said.

“The best thing we can do is be an example … and make our walk match our talk.”

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

up close getting to know Shenel Sandidge

Age: 49 My family includes: My husband, Carl, 57; and five daughters: Vashonda Eason, 31, her husband, Haven, and their sons Hudson and Vance; Sharonda Sandidge, 22; Carlonda Sandidge, 21; Yalaunda Sandidge, 13; and ArRionda Sandidge, 11.

A book I’m reading right now is: Creating a Habitat for Humanity: No Hands but Yours by Johnathan T.M. Reckford (CEO, Habitat for Humanity)

My hobbies are: I do hair. I’ve been braiding hair since I was 9 years old. Mom went to beauty school and taught us all how to do hair. That’s what I did when I wasn’t working. I did it out of the home; that was my means of income. Directing the church choir is one of my hobbies, and I’m always listening to new songs to teach. I spend ample hours doing that.