Dealer Secures Habitat for Humanity Homes

Tomorrow is moving day for Linda Cox and her three sons. She is excited! Their future starts tomorrow. The generosity of Covert Alarm makes that future safer and more secure.”

The above excerpt from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis may just be one of many accolades given to Covert Alarm Co. of Indianapolis since the company has donated and installed 16 home security systems. Covert’s volunteer effort coincided with Habitat for Humanity’s 10th Anniversary September blitz to build 16 houses in a week and was led by Dan Brewster, sales manager, and John Thomas, technician. Habitat for Humanity (commonly called Habitat) is a renowned non-profit organization that builds, renovates and sells homes to working poor families on a no-profit, no-interest basis.

Brewster offered Covert Alarm’s support after reading about the program’s need for supplies and volunteers. Call it luck or providence, but Habitat got the call from Brewster just one week after officials decided security was no longer a luxury for the homes. Several Habitat homes had been burglarized in the Indianapolis area. Habitat itself had been the victim of burglary, having lost $7,000 worth of tools from its warehouse storage facility.

Brewster secured the warehouse with a wireless ITI GE Security Pro 2000, which the agency will take with it when it moves its storage facilities. The 16 houses were secured with similar wireless and hardwired equipment with an estimated value of $24,000. In the same spirit of community support, General Emergency Monitoring of Indianapolis, Covert’s contract monitoring facility, is providing residents with monitoring services at half price.

Blitz Day Is Electrifying
When the Covert crew arrived for the installation blitz weekend, hundreds of volunteers were working atop, inside and around the houses. The energy of the volunteers was electrifying. The Covert crew included Brewster’s wife Betty and sons Bob and Drew, Brenda Thomson, General Manager Ray Saksons, company employee Donald Baum and company President Jim Covert.

Despite the excitement and energy, all was not smooth sailing for the Covert volunteers during the blitz. Even though Brewster and Thomas had planned thoroughly, the drywall installation crew decided to start earlier than expected. Consequently, the day before the installations were due to begin Brewster discovered that the drywalling had already started and one of the houses was already finished. To accommodate, Covert Alarm installed a wireless system in that particular home.

Consequently, Brewster prewired four houses that night. By noon on Saturday, all the houses were prewired ahead of the drywallers.

Brewster estimates the company will have spent 3.5 hours per house on the planning, paperwork, installation and homeowner training for the 16 Habitat homes. Covert’s net income for the 56 hours’ work? $0. However, the crew worked side by side with several building contractors on the Habitat site and many expressed interest in having the company install security systems in some of the paid jobs on which they were working.

Jim Covert expressed thanks to Interactive Technologies Inc., which gave Covert Alarm special pricing in honor of the company’s participation.

For more information on how to participate in the Habitat for Humanity project in your local community, call (800)-HABITAT.