Published: October 18, 2009 08:28 pm      

Tazewell family finds there is no place like home

BLUEFIELD, Va. — Angela Brinnegar was smiling from ear to ear as 35 to 40 of her friends gathered in her new home in the West Graham section of Bluefield, Va.

“There are a lot of people in here,” Brinnegar said moments before the Reverend Larry Ramey started the dedication service for the most recently completed Habitat for Humanity home in Tazewell County — the 15th built with love by volunteer builders.

“This is an important part of the process,” Ramey said. “It’s always customary that Habitat for Humanity have a service ... a blessing for the home where this family will reside.”

Brinnegar submitted an application to be considered by Habitat. “You have to have a job,” she said. “How else are you going to pay for your home.

“It does feel exciting though,” she said. “When you have a home, nobody can take it from you. It’s home.”

Brinnegar and her three children — Eden, 14, Michael, 13, and Brittany, 10 — plan to move into the home in a week or so. “I feel kinda bad moving all of our stuff in with this looking so good,” she said, but then paused as she caught a glimpse of the curtains hanging in the kitchen window. “This is home,” she said.

John White served as project manager on the new Habitat for Humanity house. “We started on Aug. 17,” White said. “The whole house comes as a kit and you put it together like a jigsaw puzzle, but that’s just the outside. You have to finish the inside just like you would any house.” White said that rain was a challenge, but added that Rev. Ramey, Wilson Workman and Brian Lockhart were the “primary block layers,” on the job.

“A lot of us worked on the project, but we had to shovel a lot of mud to work on the foundation,” Ramey said.

“We’d leave here at night after shoveling mud all day, come back the next day and start shoveling mud all over again,” Brinnegar said. “I learned a whole lot about construction, but I learned more about shoveling mud.”

“There is no way to calculate the number of volunteer hours that went into this project,” Ramey said.

During the “Service of Dedication,” Ramey became emotional when he called for a round of applause for a group of 10-12 young men from the Appalachian Detention Center in Honaker, Va. White also expressed his appreciation to the crew from the detention center. They came every day and worked hard,” White said.

Major Berk Artrip said the Appalachian Detention Center is an intervention center for non-violent offenders who have violated the terms of their probation.

“We have young men in the program from as far east as Lynchburg, Va., and as far north as Harrisonburg, Va.,” Artrip said. “We get some kids who have never had a job, some who are as old as 30 who have never had a Social Security card.

“There is discipline, but we are not a military-style boot camp,” Artrip said. “Working on a project like this, the kids gain some skills in the construction trades. But working on a house like this gives a greater reward than just the skills you learn. They can take a lot of pride in knowing they helped build this home.” Artrip said he is proud of the center’s 70 percent success rate.

“This home now sits on what was once a vacant lot,” Ramey said during the dedication service. “We have not only helped Angela and the kids, we have also helped this neighborhood. Here, we’re seeing the community benefit. It is a blessing to be part of Habitat for Humanity.”

Buford and Mona Cordle, as well as their family attended the service. Ramey noted that the Cordles own the seventh home built by Tazewell County Habitat for Humanity volunteers.

Volunteers prepared some delicious food for the past-dedication reception, but most of the volunteers seemed content to tour the completed project and bask in the warmth of each others’ smiles.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com