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WEST POINT — The Chattahoochee Fuller Center Project (CFCP) will be celebrating its 14th anniversary with a week-long blitz build on Higgins Street in West Point. A kickoff dinner will be held at Bethlehem Baptist Church on East 10th Street to get things started. It will be taking place on Sunday evening, Oct. 3. Work on the two houses will start the following morning and continue through Friday.

Up to 60 volunteers from all over the U.S. will be in town that week to build the two new homes.

“Most of them have helped us before,” said CFCP Executive Director Kim Roberts. “They are experienced and do excellent work. Our house captain for Home No. 65 is A.J. Jewell. He’s from Florida and helped us when we were in Beauregard. Barry Stuck will be the house captain on Home No. 66. He is with a group from the Bunkertown Brethren Church from McAlisterville, Pennsylvania. They have been here before and are great people. We love them and the work they do.”

Doug Stephens will be the co-captain for one of the builds, and Bryce Kujat the co-captain for the other house that will be going up. Bryce’s older brother, Seth Kujat, led several major CFCP projects in the past.

As the host church, Bethlehem will feed the volunteers dinner at 5:30 p.m. each day. Some of the volunteers will be spending the night at the Plant City Methodist Church and others at the Hampton Inn & Suites.

Lanett First Baptist Church, West Point First Methodist, West Point Presbyterian and Jerome Bailey will be providing lunch during the week.

“People don’t know what it takes to pull something like this together,” Roberts said. “There are so many details involved, but it usually works out well, and that’s what matters. I am praying for good weather that week. We will need it.”

It should take about a day and a half to get the two new homes dried in. Most of the work should be finished by Friday.

The following week, a group of bicyclists representing Fuller Center International in Americus, Georgia will be on site in West Point to finish up any remaining items on the punch list. The two families can then move in.

Luteshia Finley and her two children will be living in Home No. 65, and Rita Rowland and her 12-year-old granddaughter Kennedy will be living in Home No. 66.

Rowland is a 14-year veteran of the U.S. Army. No. 66 will be the first home she has ever owned. She has two grown children, son Jaylin and daughter Asia.

Roberts is well pleased with some work that was done on the site this past Monday. The two new homes will be built side by side. On Monday, Takco Construction of LaGrange brought in more than 30 truckloads of dirt. This enabled the sites for the two new homes to be raised several feet above street level.

“We want to thank Kia for providing us the dirt at no charge and Takco for bringing it to the site and having it compacted,” Roberts said. “They did a great job.”