For many homeowners a kitchen renovation can be a daunting task. At Legacy Kitchens, our unique team approach makes the renovation experience virtually headache free. Our renovation team provides a complete package including all of the sub trades, and we schedule the whole project in advance so that you know exactly what to expect. We take pride in doing great kitchen renovations. In this video, see how everyone from our experienced design professionals to the dedicated team in our state-of-the-art warehouse work together to give you a great kitchen and stress-free renovation experience.

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Welcome to Legacy Kitchens
Choosing the Right Kitchen Designer
What is Contemporary Kitchen Design?
What is Transitional Kitchen Design?

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Here’s the latest Opportunity International Roof & Floor Program update from Astrid in Cartagena, Colombia. Luz runs a small business and is active in her community:

Luz Ena is married with two children. This family has fought for a better quality of life. Luz Ena has worked with her trust group Oasis for four loan cycles to strengthen her business. She sells items from catalogues, specifically makeup creams, deodorant, perfumes, and she also works as a community mother, where she instructs young mother’s prenatal care.

Luz Ena has managed her loan well with Opportunity International, always paying back her loans on time. She is thankful that she can apply for Home Improvement loan, which Opportunity offers as “a roof and floor” for the most faithful trust group clients. Her loan was approved for $1,500,000 pesos over 18 months. Luz Ena has used this money to improve her kitchen which she now enjoys with her family and uses it especially as a community mother.

Astrid

Watch the first documentary from our trip to Cartagena during the Summer of 2008.
Watch the second documentary from our follow-up trip to Cartagena during the Winter of 2010.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Opportunity International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the working poor. They provide small loans that allow poor entrepreneurs to start or expand a business, develop a steady income, provide for their families and create jobs for their neighbors. Opportunity International also offers savings, microinsurance, business training and many more services to 1.1 million working poor in 28 developing nations.

www.opportunityinternational.ca

Whether you’re planning to build a new kitchen or want to transform your old one, a successful project starts with choosing the right designer. You’ll want to choose a designer who listens carefully, understands what you’re trying to achieve and is worthy of your trust. Find out how our kitchen design professionals collaborate with clients to create beautiful and functional custom kitchens.

More Videos

Welcome to Legacy Kitchens
Stress-Free Kitchen Renovation
What is Contemporary Kitchen Design?
What is Transitional Kitchen Design?

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

The kitchen is the heart of the home, and we feel privileged to be involved with creating the room where you’ll experience good times with friends and family. Learn about our rich history and the people who ensure an end result that you’ll fall in love with.

More Videos

Choosing the Right Kitchen Designer
Stress-Free Kitchen Renovation
What is Contemporary Kitchen Design?
What is Transitional Kitchen Design?

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Yuliana was one of our clients whose house was damaged in October floods in 2011. In one flood, she and her family lost everything they had. The flood destroyed their house and everything in it. In the moment that it happened, they had to run for their lives.

In previous floods, they had been able to rebuild their house with much effort, using plastic material for the walls and a tarp for the roof. And eventually, they saved enough money to buy a second roof in addition to some wood to replace the plastic walls. However, October’s severe flooding destroyed everything they had managed to build.

It is difficult to grasp what it is like to pour out your savings and effort only to lose it all in an instant. It must have seemed the worst possible situation where all their hopes and dreams had come to an end with one devastating storm. As the reality of their situation hit them, they must have felt incredible stress and discouragement, thinking to themselves: “We have to start from zero to build our new house.”

But just as the verse says, ‘all things work for the good’, or as we say in Colombia, ‘there is no bad from which good cannot come’.

Thanks to the generosity of Opportunity International donors, money was collected to form an emergency fund in response to the October flooding. This money provided help to those who lost everything and bought material for three families to reconstruct their homes: Two families in Bayunca and one in Cartagena.

Opportunity supervisor, Julia Carranza of the Bayunca zone, saw what had happened to Yuliana and her family. Shortly after, we visited her house to see the extent of the damage.

Yuliana, her husband and children worked diligently to build their new house with the donated materials. Today they enjoy their new house which is elevated by concrete to protect them from future flooding. Little by little they will begin to furnish the house. This is a huge blessing for the family. Their weeping has turned dancing, and this is the good God we have who is able to help us.

A new house and a happy home thanks to the donors who helped make this dream possible. Blessings to all!

Astrid

Watch the first documentary from our trip to Cartagena during the Summer of 2008.
Watch the second documentary from our follow-up trip to Cartagena during the Winter of 2010.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Opportunity International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the working poor. They provide small loans that allow poor entrepreneurs to start or expand a business, develop a steady income, provide for their families and create jobs for their neighbors. Opportunity International also offers savings, microinsurance, business training and many more services to 1.1 million working poor in 28 developing nations.

www.opportunityinternational.ca

The members of the Amigos de Progreso trust group come from the Tuchín tribe originally located in the region of Córdoba. As an invasion community, they settled on a mountain overlooking barrio San Francisco, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cartagena. Hoping to find a better life in the city, they set up coffee businesses on the street. Then three years ago they formed their trust group with Opportunity International to obtain the capital to grow their businesses.

Wilfrido Pérez Lucas is the president and driving force behind Amigos de Progreso. He is married to Saudith Carpio. Together they have a daughter and a little boy. Just like the rest of his trust group, he began selling coffee on the street with a carrier of just a few thermoses of coffee. He used his first loan from Opportunity International to buy a bicycle and install a cart to carry ten thermoses of traditional coffee, coffee with chocolate and coffee with milk. In addition to beverages, he added sandwiches to the menu. Now he is known throughout his neighborhood as Cafeteria Charlie.

Keeping a strict schedule of 7:00 am to 11:00 am in the morning and 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm in the afternoon, Wilfrido drives around surrounding neighborhoods alerting customers with his horn. As soon as they hear it, they know Cafeteria Charlie has arrived. His business not only functions as a way to provide for his family but also as a way to advance his dream of learning English.

In May 2011, because of his excellent credit history with the organization, Wilfrido was able to take out a $1,500,000 peso loan as a part of Opportunity’s Roof and Floor program. He used the money to buy material to convert his one room house into three rooms with a stronger roof. Then in October 2011, San Francisco neighborhood at the base of La Popa was declared a high risk because of the geographic faults in this area. Due to flooding, mudslides began to threaten the safety of its residents. The government ordered an evacuation when many houses were destroyed.

More than a hundred families were forced to leave the area with little government assistance. This included every member of the Amigos de Progreso trust group.

Fortunately, Wilfrido was able to save the materials from his Roof and Floor loan and rebuild his house behind a friend’s house in the San Francisco neighborhood. He also received a monthly government stipend of $200,000 pesos to last from October until the end of February. However, that was very little money to support a family of four. Today he struggles to provide for his family through his coffee business.

Although the trust group successfully repaid their business loan, Wilfrido still owes $964,324 pesos on his Roof and Floor loan. The fear is that if he defaults on this loan, he will severely damage his credit rating. Opportunity International is in the process of working with him to assist him in paying or forgive his loan because of extenuating circumstances.

Before the mudslides, Amigos de Progreso had just begun a group project to make and sell artisan bracelets native to the Tuchín tribe. The additional revenue had supplemented their income. However, many had no other option than to return to Córdoba, and this project has dwindled. From the beginning, Wilfrido was strategic in uniting the group and organizing this project, and despite the ever-rising obstacles, he still wants to see this project through.

During the June 2011 Insight Trip, Wilfrido described the group’s vision: “We want you to know that today we all have small coffee businesses, but we will not always be as we are now. We aspire to progress and grow our businesses.” And that is still their plan.

Astrid

Watch the first documentary from our trip to Cartagena during the Summer of 2008.
Watch the second documentary from our follow-up trip to Cartagena during the Winter of 2010.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Opportunity International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the working poor. They provide small loans that allow poor entrepreneurs to start or expand a business, develop a steady income, provide for their families and create jobs for their neighbors. Opportunity International also offers savings, microinsurance, business training and many more services to 1.1 million working poor in 28 developing nations.

www.opportunityinternational.ca

Nancy is a participant in the Opportunity International Roof & Floor Program that we support in Cartagena, Colombia. Astrid, the program manager, sent along this story about how Nancy’s business and family have benefitted from their rebuilt kitchen:

Nancy is a hardworking wife and the mother of three children. She is also a leader in her community. Together with her trust group, they have been the pioneers of spreading Opportunity ́s trust group program in Maria La Baja. This zone is characterized by the agriculture products they sell which are fundamental to a typical Colombian diet: yams, yucca, corn, and rice. Nancy and her mother grow and sell these products in their community and also in Cartagena. Through this business, they are able to provide for their family.

In 2010, Nancy decided to participate in the Roof and Loan program to improve her kitchen. The walls were made of mud, and because of the intensity of the rain, they were beginning to collapse, putting her and her family at risk.

Through the program, she was able to take out a loan for $1,500,000 pesos over 15 months to improve her kitchen. This enabled her to rebuild the kitchen utilizing more space and making it safer and more sanitary for her family.

Nancy expresses her gratefulness for this program that has improved her quality of life. Her dream is to finish the rest of the house and continue to grow her business.

Astrid

Watch the first documentary from our trip to Cartagena during the Summer of 2008.
Watch the second documentary from our follow-up trip to Cartagena during the Winter of 2010.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Opportunity International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the working poor. They provide small loans that allow poor entrepreneurs to start or expand a business, develop a steady income, provide for their families and create jobs for their neighbors. Opportunity International also offers savings, microinsurance, business training and many more services to 1.1 million working poor in 28 developing nations.

www.opportunityinternational.ca

Transitional kitchen design is an eclectic mix of contemporary and traditional styles. Jan D’Atri tours a kitchen display at our Affinity Kitchens showroom in Scottsdale, Arizona and shows how the dark stained cabinetry is blended seamlessly with contemporary glass panels, concrete countertops and stainless steel accents to create a look that is both hip and homey. See more Transitional kitchens in our Photo Gallery.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

As the head of her household, Candelaria Sequea works to provide a better life for her kids, who are taking classes in technological training. She has a business where she sells different types of fried foods and soup. She makes sacrifices to support them in their professional development. She stands as a true example of faith and perseverance. Through it all, God’s provision in her business and family is evident.

Candelaria Sequea belonged to a trust group for four loan cycles. However, due to the rain they had on October 18th, her neighborhood of Pozón encountered heavy floods. Her family’s house was destroyed by the water. This crisis forced them to move and pay rent for many months with the hope that they would return to reconstruct a small business where their house once stood.

Through her own determination and with the help of her kids, Candelaria managed to buy some of the materials needed to start construction on her house, and thanks to Opportunity International’s emergency fund, additional materials were donated to finish the job. Today she is able to live once again with her two children in their own home and not pay rent.

She mentions that this location is crucial to her business, which is located at the entrance of the neighborhood, a very commercial area. She is confident that she will be able to reinitiate her lunch sales and continue to buy things for this year.

Astrid

Candelaria’s house (left) is completely destroyed

Astrid visited Candelaria after Christmas and there was nothing left of her home

Candelaria with her new home

Watch the first documentary from our trip to Cartagena during the Summer of 2008.
Watch the second documentary from our follow-up trip to Cartagena during the Winter of 2010.

Visit the Legacy Kitchens YouTube Channel

Opportunity International is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the working poor. They provide small loans that allow poor entrepreneurs to start or expand a business, develop a steady income, provide for their families and create jobs for their neighbors. Opportunity International also offers savings, microinsurance, business training and many more services to 1.1 million working poor in 28 developing nations.

www.opportunityinternational.ca

We are excited to announce that the ‘Music for a Winter Evening’ benefit concert and ‘Save a Life Campaign’ has raised over $100,000 for the Calgary Dream Centre. This means that all expenses will be covered for 30 men to participate in a 3 month life skills and rehabilitation program. Donations will be applied to everything from basic needs like food and shelter to program resources, education, counselor salaries and recreation. 30 broken men who have lost everything will be given the chance to start a new life.

The ‘Music for a Winter Evening’ concert was incredible. The Corpus Christie Male Chorale sent shivers through the audience with their enchanting voices, the Foothills Brass Quintet livened up the stage with their fantastic classical renditions and Tom Jackson gave a wonderful, heartfelt performance.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the concert and supported to the ‘Save a Life Campaign’ – your contributions to the Calgary Dream Centre are helping to Save Lives. ‘Music for a Winter Evening’ raised significant funds for the Calgary Dream Centre but it also has increased awareness. It helps us show what the Calgary Dream Centre is doing to help change the Community of Calgary by helping give individuals a chance at a new life. Have a wonderful New Year and be blessed in 2012.

Sincerely,

Jim Moore, CEO/Executive Director of Calgary Dream Centre
John Buller, Chief Executive Officer of Legacy Kitchens, ‘Music for a Winter Evening’

Save the Date

The 12th Annual ‘Music for a Winter Evening’ benefit concert is scheduled for December 17th, 2012. We would love for you to join us.