PARIS – A group of building construction technology students at the technical school within Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School was honored Thursday for its bighearted collaboration with Community Concepts, a nonprofit social service agency.
Twelve students labored from September to May to build a three-bedroom ranch home on Morse Brook Road for Pamela and William Hodsdon, who are both disabled. The Hodsdons, currently living in Auburn, will move to Paris once finishing touches have been made to their home.
Students at the technical school have built homes for Community Concepts in the past. But this year for the first time, they worked with that organization’s self-help program, which uses money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development agency to offer low-income families the chance to own their own homes.
Under the program’s guidelines, families are supposed to contribute 65 percent of the building labor. But because of the Hodsdons’ disabilities, the students served as a substitute source of labor.
“If it wasn’t for (the students),” Pamela Hodsdon said, “I wouldn’t have a home.”
Between them the students, all juniors and seniors, put in about 100 hours a week from start to finish to build the home, said one of their instructors, Dan Daniels, who supervised them during the project. Daniels said his students did pretty much everything on the house, except for plumbing, heating, electrical work and the foundation excavation. Scott McElravy, who also teaches building construction technology at the school, helped Daniels supervise the project.
The students said they were grateful for the hands-on experience they gained, as well as the opportunity to lend a helping hand to someone in the community.
“I’ve loved building since I was young. This is what I’ve always wanted to do,” said senior Corey Wiles. He added, “It’s a great thing what we’re doing for people who can’t afford high-end homes.”
Junior Brent Durgin said it “feels wonderful to help out people and get their house built.”
Junior Tim Hutter said he was entirely satisfied with the work he’d done since September.
“It feels like a real good completion and success,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this.”
Dale Holmes, the state’s Rural Housing program director for the USDA, was present at Thursday’s event to congratulate the students. He said the self-help program was “one of the better programs we have. It brings together families, friends and communities.” Holmes noted, “This was a real community effort.”
Daniels said he had seen his students mature over the course of the project.
“It’s amazing to see the growth of young people when they get into a project like this. This is real. They take a lot of pride and ownership in things like this. This is not like being in the shop in school.”
McElravy concurred. “Even if they never build another house and go into another trade, he said, “They can come by here some day and say, this is a house I built.”
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