Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project Home No. 40 is going up this week on 26th Avenue in Valley’s Red Dirt Hill neighborhood. It’s not too far from city hall and even closer to Divorce Lake.

New homeowners Rodney and Carmen Lott are very deserving to have an opportunity to own a home of their own. Rodney’s a lot like CFCP Executive Director Kim Roberts. Both are double amputees and get around really well on prosthetic limbs. Rodney and Carmen have been at the construction site all week, thanking each person for what they are doing in getting the home built.

It’s amazing how much can be done in a short period of time when you have 50 to 55 good people dedicated to the goal of having a new home built in one week. I’ve seen it happen many times since the CFCP began in 2007 and it never gets old watching each project come together. It also never gets old driving past Fuller Center houses and knowing the neighborhoods have changed for the better and that deserving people are living in good, decent homes they can afford.

It was good to see Bill Scott on the work site Wednesday. There probably wouldn’t be a CFCP without him. His organizational skills and ability to motivate people were instrumental in getting the CFCP started. He served as the organization’s president in its early years.

It’s also good to see people coming back to work these projects. Barry and Amy Stuck of Middleburg, Penn., have been to the Valley seven different times to work on homebuilding projects.

“They are great,” Kim Roberts told me. “I didn’t have to call them to get them to come this year. They called me.”

The Stucks were involved in the construction of Homes No. 3 and 4 on North 6th Avenue in Lanett, on projects in West Point, the Millard Fuller Legacy Build in Lanett on Labor Day weekend in 2009 and now with No. 40 in Valley.

Another member of the crew, Don Brubaker of Sunbury, Penn., has been to Haiti 14 times on homebuilding projects. One of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, Haiti is still recovering from a devastating earthquake that rocked the country in the recent past.

It’s good to have such people in the community, even for a short time. We should do all we can to make them feel welcome and that we all appreciate what they do to help make our community a better place to live.

Barry Stuck told me that one of the reasons he and Amy keep coming back are the friendships they have made with people like Bill Scott and Monroe and Leslie Smith, whom they are staying with this week.

The Valley is one of 11 different places the Stucks have made a total of 23 trips to in homebuilding projects.

Something new with the current project is the involvement of youth. The construction of Home No. 40 is the first one for the CFCP to use volunteers in the 12-18 age group. They are youth from such churches as Refuge Point Church, Providence Baptist, Hopewell Methodist, Next Ministry in Lanett and Free Will Baptist in Opelika. They’ve painted all the Hardie board siding for the house, the exterior trim and the doors. They have taken care of needed projects and did excellent work.

West Point Mayor Steve Tramell, a dedicated volunteer for the CFCP, is looking forward to the next two projects, No. 41 and 42, that will be built this fall in West Point.

In addition to new home building, the CFCP has also done good work in renovating existing houses as new homes for local residents and has worked with Point University students on Block of Blessings projects to improve local neighborhoods.

The CFCP keeps on keeping on doing good things. It’s something we should all be proud of and stand ready to volunteer when needed.