SALEM (WSLS 10) - Class officially starts at Roanoke College Wednesday but hundreds of students are already hard at work as they team up with Habitat for Humanity for an annual build.
A parking lot isn't the most ideal place to build a home.
"It's just more complicated, more logistically complex," explained Brain Clark. "But it gives us a chance to build with more people and share this kind of built with more folks in the community."
It's a message Roanoke College students are hammering home for the tenth year.
"It pulls them altogether here under one big tent as you can see here and it just brings them into the spirit of building a house and home for family who's here working with us," he said.
Senior Kadie Duggan got hooked on Habitat for Humanity her freshman year when she picked up tools for the annual R-House build.
"They threw me right up on the house," she said. "Ever since then I've been on spring break trips and fall break trips and have worked on Service Corps to help other freshmen learn too."
Duggan is back every year, including this year for the milestone build. This year's house is Roanoke College's 10th house and Habitat for Humanity's 200th.
"Seeing the families at the end seeing how they have a home and just having that rewarding feeling," she said.
Brain Clark is a RC graduate who went on to work for Habitat. He's been here for every build since it started.
Clark is helping the entire freshman class, about 500 students, and more than 100 others volunteer to work on the 2015 home.
"It allows the most people to be able to participate in building a home in that gives us something actually to share with the family with the community."
Construction on the future two-story house will continue through Wednesday. Trucks will move it to its permanent location at 1208 Fairfax Ave., in Northwest Roanoke Thursday. The area is a new target area for the Roanoke Valley Habitat.
The home will be ready for its homeowners, Athuman Shaban and Zayana Abdallah, natives of Burundi, Africa, by the end of the semester.