Mayor: Lander builds Habitat house for Greenwood

Minute with the Mayor: Groundbreaking ceremony for the Lander University Habitat for Humanity House was on Lander’s campus today.

The members of Lander University’s Habitat for Humanity chapter will build a single-family home on campus, beginning Feb. 25. When the outer shell of the house is completed, it will be moved to Kirksey Forest, off Marshall Rd., where it will be permanently located. The eventual occupants of the house will assist volunteers with the interior work.

Lander Habitat for Humanity Starts Work

     “Every year, Lander University will build a house right here and take it to our city and help people who are in need. I’m proud of that, and I’m proud of our kids,” said Lander President Rich Cosentino.

Greenwood Mayor Welborn Adams also spoke. He said he was “fired up about this project.”

The Lander chapter of Habitat for Humanity will work closely with Habitat for Humanity’s Greenwood chapter. Chad Charles, executive director of the Greenwood chapter, said that he and his staff “are super-excited about this opportunity and about this partnership.”

The Lander chapter of Habitat for Humanity is an initiative of First Lady Jessica Cosentino.

April 22 is the anticipated completion date for the “drying in” of the house currently under construction. Work on the interior will continue, with participation by the family that will take ownership, after the house is moved to Kirksey Forest, off Marshall Road.

It will take 1,000 volunteers if all of the two-hour time slots are filled for the eight-week construction project. Anyone 16 or over can participate, including faculty, staff, students and community members. Those wishing to volunteer should go to landerhabitat.com and click on the “sign up” link.

Since the new chapter received its charter in November, “the love and support and money have just poured in,” said chapter president Jessica Trotter. The organization now has more than 40 dues-paying members, and many others have signed up to work on the house.

Trotter, who lived in a Habitat for Humanity house herself for four years, said, “This is a very, very exciting moment for me, not just for Lander’s chapter, but on a personal level.”

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