A new home for home builders Habitat for Humanity’s Madison and Clark County chapter has a little more room to spread out now.
The chapter conducted an open house and dedication Saturday to celebrate the renovation of their office building on E. Main Street. The lower floor of the two-story office building, which the chapter purchased several years ago, had been leased out to another charity group until last fall, according to Ike Adams, director of development for Habitat for Humanity of Madison and Clark counties. After the group moved out, the chapter decided to take over the office space for its own use, Adams said. The building is named for former chapter president Bill Vockery, who spearheaded the purchase of the building, a former church and child care center. The upper floor is a 17-bed lodge for visiting groups working on Habitat homes, Adams said. “We also have a bunch of couches if we run out of room,” Adams said. The lodge has its own entrance and has laundry and kitchen facilities as well as showers for the volunteers. Generally, Adams said, the volunteer groups are from universities, but occasionally church groups also will come in to assist with building houses. “We don’t have to advertise,” Adams said. “All lower 48 states have been represented. “When we had the group in from Pennsylvania a few months ago, they had people from 17 states,” Adams said. As part of the event, Girl Scout Troop 604 built a pair of miniature homes, one of which will be displayed at the office, while the other will go to the chapter’s ReStore location in Berea, which sells reclaimed and surplus building materials to help fund Habitat projects. The project is designed to promote the chapter’s upcoming “women’s build” of a Habitat home, organizers said. The troop members assembled and painted the houses and installed siding, shingles, windows and doors. Each of the girls also painted a concrete block to keep as a part of the activity. Brian Smith may be reached at bsmithrichmondregister.com or at 624-6694. More from the Homepage section