Charity Builders Becoming a Habit

On the corner of Stevenson Street and Lee Highway in Fairfax, the Sandlot Gang marked its return to the neighborhood with the thudding sound of their hammers pounding into wooden beams.

As members of Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia, the crew had overseen the construction of a condominium on nearby Westbrook Mill Lane a year earlier that now houses 12 low-income families.

On Saturday Jan. 24, the non-profit group began work on Maple Ridge, a new, nine-family unit condominium on Stevenson Street. At 9 a.m., approximately 20 Habitat members and volunteers began putting up support beams and laying the foundation for the skeletal frame of the building. Construction manager Harry Street estimated that they would most likely stay until 4 p.m…

…A good deal of the volunteers onsite Saturday were members of First Baptist Church in Vienna. Congregants had caught wind of the project through a church function and more than a dozen of them signed up for the Maple Ridge project. Suzanne Thompson, a member of the church and ESL teacher, said she was initially apprehensive about how much help she could provide as an amateur, but praised the guidance provided by the project managers.

“The Sandlot crew was very good at explaining something and then letting us try,” said Thompson. “I think they’re going to be very well-built houses.”

Read full article here: Charity Builders Becoming a Habit.

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Posted by admin on Feb 24 2009. Filed under Fairfax County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.