Over the course of her 25-year career, Stephanie Butler has fought tirelessly to help low- and moderate-income Mt. Airy residents purchase their first homes. Now, she’s set to be honored as one of several community champions at the Mt. Airy Community Development Corporation’s “Taste of Mt. Airy” fundraiser, for a career dedicated to community service that has impacted the lives of countless individuals.

​Butler serves as the director of housing counseling for the Mt. Airy CDC, where she helps prospective homebuyers. To her, purchasing a home isn’t just securing a place to live; it’s an individual’s “biggest investment ever.” Her accomplishments remind the community of the importance of dedication to creating positive change.

​“We do one-on-one counseling, where we get down to everything that it takes for them to purchase a home,” Butler said. “We deal with income, budgeting, savings and credit, explained to give them an action plan on how they can put themselves in a position to get a loan to purchase a home. And all the parties that are involved in it, like the Realtors, the lenders and title companies, home inspection companies, go through every step to make them a homeowner.”

​Butler’s job doesn’t stop after the purchase is completed. “I’m also working with homeowners who are maybe in default, they fell behind on a mortgage. I go to mortgage diversion court for those that are in the foreclosure process. I work with people to try to do a modification, come up with some type of repayment plan, or reinstate if they have funds available to reinstate their mortgage,” she said.

​Butler also works with people who aren’t homeowners but still face challenges regarding residency. “I do rental eviction counseling, working with tenants trying to stay in their home before there’s eviction, negotiate with the landlord to try to come up with some type of repayment plan for them if they want to stay or if they need to transition, giving them other resources of where they can go if they do need to move out whether it’s on their own, or no agreement can be agreed upon,” she said.

​“I appreciate my mother, because helping out in the community, in some aspect, was always a part of the family growing up,” she added.

Her commitment made Butler a “natural selection” to be honored, according to Phil Dawson, executive director at the Mt. Airy CDC. He said her 25 years of dedication was “a milestone that we didn’t want to pass up without honoring it.”

​“She’s the one who’s going to court week after week with those clients when their cases come up, she’s doing phone calls with them, giving referrals,” Dawson said. “So it’s the longevity of her commitment, and also the continued commitment to one-on-one help with folks in the community to keep them housed.”

“We know how many people are impacted by the program year after year,” he added. “It’s typically these days 1,100 to 1,200 people a year that we serve, between homebuyer workshops, one-on-one counseling, pre-purchase eviction foreclosure clients. So it’s a lot of people that are impacted, and she’s the director of the department. You look at that number, and then you think of how much it must have been after 25 years, and that level of impact is really staggering.”

In addition to Butler, others who will be honored at the event are pro bono immigration lawyer and immigrant justice advocate Judi Bernstein-Baker of the Northwest Immigration Network; Weavers Way Co-op for its programs to offset the impact of federal furloughs and cuts to SNAP; Dr. Kennard Herring of Nostalgic Eye Care, the city’s only Black optometrist to own his own practice; and longtime local business owner Min Ok Kim of Mt. Airy Breakfast & Lunch.

The Taste of Mt. Airy fundraiser, scheduled for May 30, will be held at the Commodore John Barry Arts and Cultural Center. The funds raised by the event, Dawson said, will “support all the programs that serve Mt. Airy throughout the year and help to supplement what we get through grants.”