PARIS – A $10,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation is helping two families with down payments and closing costs on area homes.

The homes will be built by vocational students from Oxford Hills Technical School and Mountain Valley Vocational Region 9, “as real-life job skill training,” said Mary Ellen Therriault.

Therriault is a spokeswoman for Community Concepts Inc., which has an active housing department that helps first-time home buyers. Community Concepts buys the land, develops the site as a classroom learning environment, provides materials and finds buyers.

“Our partnership with the schools has been tremendously successful,” said Dennis Lajoie, director of housing for the nonprofit social services agency.

Wells Fargo Bank is a national lender specializing in first and second mortgages. Since 1993, the bank’s housing foundation has provided volunteers and financing for the construction and remodeling of more than 1,000 homes for low-income, first-time homebuyers.

For information about purchasing a home, people can call Community Concepts Housing Programs in South Paris at 743-7716, or in Rumford at 364-3721.