Habitat for Humanity looking for women's touch in new building

Organizers have set a goal to have 150 women sign up to volunteer

LYNCHBURG, Va. – On Edgar Street in Lynchburg contractors are hard at work putting up dry walls for a habitat home.
And right next door to the house the foundation for another home was created Tuesday.

“It will be really great to have two jobs side by side. People at one project can bounce over to the next one if there’s a task that they would like to do,” Donna Vincent, executive director of Greater Lynchburg Habitat for Humanity, said.

The house will be built by women.

It’s a part of a project called Women Build, created by the Greater Lynchburg Habitat for Humanity, to inspire women to get involved in building affordable housing for local families.

“This will be the fourth Women Build for Habitat in 30 years. We did it two years ago. We built a two-story home in four weeks. This time we’re going to spread it out over a long period of time,” Vincent said.
Men are welcome to join, but organizers have set a goal to have 150 women adding their touch to the project. On April 25, habitat is holding a “Habi-Hour” to familiarize ladies with certain tools.

“We’ll be training women on some very simple concepts so that when they come back on Saturday the 27th to build the walls, they’ll have an idea what it means when someone says, 'well we need a stud in this place, a jack, we need a header,'” Vincent said.

Habitat hopes  to dedicate the new home to a family in June.

“They’ll be building a home in partnership with a woman here who works full-time in a physician’s office. She has a child. She’s working very hard on a plan to be self-reliant,” Vincent said.

Lynchburg’s Habitat also hopes to raise $25,000 from the participants to cover some of the construction costs.