Crews build walls for Fuller Center Legacy Build in October
Published 4:26 pm Monday, August 19, 2019
Builders First Source and volunteers built walls for homes Saturday. Chattahoochee Fuller Center Executive director Kim Roberts, right poses for a photo with store manager Jason Collins, second from left, and “Ski” Zaniewski, far right, of Builders First Source and Randy Crawford of Crawford Construction Company, far left. -- Wayne Clark
On Saturday morning, Kim Roberts and Robin Pierre of the Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project and West Point Mayor Steve Tramell (on the right) joined employees of the Builders First Source Home Center and work crews of Crawford instruction Company to build sets of walls needed for the upcoming Millard Fuller Legacy Build, which will be taking place from Sept. 29-October 4 in the Beauregard community. The final set of walls needed for the Legacy Build will be assembled in early September. A total of 12 new homes will be going up in the Legacy Build. -- Wayne Clark
AUBURN — The parking lot in front of Builders First Source in Auburn was a busy place Saturday morning.
A group of about 50 men were there building walls for the 12 new homes that will be going up in Beauregard the first week in October for the annual Millard Fuller Legacy Build.
For everything to go smoothly, details such as having completed wall sections have to be taken care of in advance.
Danny Crawford of Crawford Construction Company in Auburn had three work crews to do the framing work.
“It’s amazing to see what they can do,” Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project Executive Director Kim Roberts said. “They have nail guns and can get this done so fast. They can get done in a couple of hours that would take most work crews all day.”
Crawford Construction builds up to 200 new homes in a single year. They do much of their work in Lee County.
“We are blessed to have this kind of help,” Roberts said.
Joining the Crawford work crews were employees of Builders First Source and Southern Land and Concrete in Auburn, who will be pouring slabs for the new homes to be built.
During a break in the work detail, “Ski” Zaniewski of Builders First Source talked to the big group of why they were helping the Fuller Center build new homes in Beauregard.
“It’s about people like Wendy,” he said referring to someone impacted by the storm. “She is someone who had been abused by people her entire life and had just about given up when the tornado came on March 3.”
Wendy’s mobile home was in bad shape before the storm.
The roof had leaked for years, and the trailer had mold and mildew damage.
“When we heard she might need help with her home, we asked if we could talk to her,” Zaniewski said.
The mobile home was picked up by the tornado and put down on its foundation without much visible damage.
“It wasn’t damaged enough by the storm to get help from FEMA,” Zaniewski said. “But it should have been condemned ten years ago because of that roof.”
The one person to make a breakthrough with Wendy was Roberts.
“She talked about her at a meeting we attended,” Zaniewski said. “We then asked if we could have one more home, one for her. Wendy was someone who had not smiled in years, someone who hadn’t trusted anybody in years. She is smiling now. She is saying ‘yes’ now.”
Zaniewski said he would show her the picture of the work crew building walls on Saturday, one of the sets for her new home.
“She won’t believe that many men did something like that for her,” Zaniewski said. “We thank the CFCP for standing beside us. We thank Danny Crawford and Michael Ward of Southern Land & Concrete for what they are doing. We thank Jason Collins and everyone from Builders First Source for allowing us to do this today. We love all you guys and thank you from the bottoms of our hearts. What you are doing today is changing lives for the better.”
