Casa for a Cause celebrates 10-year anniversary

New Mexico Construction Alliance handed out donation checks totaling $235,000 to 32 local nonprofits at an awards ceremony at the Las Cruces Convention Center and announced the lead builder for 2025 will be Monarch Homes.

An additional $37,000 in donations is expected in donations, NMCA Executive Director Nicole Black told the Bulletin. That amount will also be allocated to nonprofits in the area.

Since Casa for a Cause began a decade ago, NMCA (previously known as Las Cruces Home Builders Association) has donated more than $800,000 to area nonprofits.

Since 2019, NMCA has also awarded funds to an endowed scholarship that benefits a student studying the trades at New Mexico State University.

Becoming the lead builder and participating in the 10-year program, Luis Molina, owner and president of Monarch Homes, said was important.

“This is something we needed to do,” Molina said. “We’re competing with ourselves to build a better home every time we build a home. And not just better homes. I’m building a better version of myself every day and helping to build better communities and better futures.”

Hakes Brothers home builders of Las Cruces was project manager for the first Casa for a Cause, then called Anniversary House because it was part of NMCA’s 55^th anniversary celebration in 2014. Seven houses have been built since as part of the project in the past decade.

Brothers Kimble, Josh and Chris Hakes took the lead a second time in building the 2024 Casa for a Cause, joined by nearly 30 other Las Cruces businesses that contributed materials and/or labor to the project. NMCA donated the profit on the sale of the 2024 house to nonprofits like Mesilla Valley Search and Rescue, Gospel Rescue Mission, El Caldito Soup Kitchen, Mesilla Valley Hospice, Rio Grande Honor Flight and others, most of whom attended the April 17 dinner to accept their donations.

“As long as we’re building homes, people are working and the community is thriving,” Mayor Eric Enriquez said at the Thursday night dinner, which was Casa for a Cause’s 10-year anniversary celebration. “You all just keep giving, and it’s very much appreciated.”

Troy Mitchell, NMCA board president, estimated the work to build a house requires 5,680 hours, from getting a bank loan to construction to final inspection. Mitchell owns Envision Development & Construction.

“There’s one thing we all have in common – it’s our caring heart,” Mitchell said.

Black praised the local industry.

“There’s no one in New Mexico who does a project like this except Las Cruces home builders,” Black said. “NMCA is a nonprofit giving back to other local nonprofits.”

The local contractor and supplier who built the 2024 Casa for a Cause house, Kimble Hakes, said he feels “so blessed by this community.”

“That is where the applause belongs,” he said at the anniversary celebration.

Hakes said the original idea for Casa for a Cause, ten years ago, came from an out-of-state home builders association.

“We thought we could try it in Las Cruces,” Hakes said. “That was 2014. We never imagined that it would turn into an almost annual tradition and that it would have raised so much money in the last ten years. Las Cruces is a great community for homebuilding, and Casa for a Cause is one way we can give back. It is amazing the impact the building industry can have when we unite in a common cause.”

The new lead home builder, Luis Molina, is a Las Cruces native and part of NMCA’s annual Build My Future program, which brought together more than 1,500 high school students from Las Cruces and throughout southern New Mexico last October to gain hands-on-experience working with local builders and tradesmen.

Molina said he will continue to “look at other ways to bring some of the knowledge and experience I have as a builder to our children, our next generation of contractors and trades.”

Molina began work in the construction industry as a framer at age 18 and now has 25 years’ experience in the industry. He started Monarch Homes four years ago, and before that worked for Hakes Brothers for about five years.

“I see Kimble Hakes as a big inspiration for what I do,” Molina said. “Grabbing the torch” from Hakes Brothers is one of the reasons he decided Monarch Homes should take the lead on the Casa for a Cause construction project in 2025.

Jerimiah Gomez, who bought the 2024 Casa for a Cause house, was at the celebration to help hand out donation checks.

“You started a wonderful thing,” Gomez said.