HOUSE-BUILDING EFFORT SUPPORTS C.S. MONROE PROGRAMS

About 75 Loudoun County Public School students are embarking on a project that should stand the test of time.

On slightly more than one acre, students from the C.S. Monroe Technology Center in Leesburg will build a home from the foundation on up.

“In Loudoun County people say building another house is no big deal,” Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick said before a groundbreaking ceremony Monday. “This house is a big deal.”

The house will eventually be sold, perhaps to a family. And the profits, according to C.S. Monroe Principal Wagner Grier, will allow the school to give its students hammers and nails again. This will be the tenth house Monroe students have built.

John Chubb, a senior in the county school system, had his hands in the last home-building project, a home near Loudoun County High School.

“I can bring my kids here and say I built that,” Chubb said after assisting elected officials, Hatrick and others uproot earth to get the project started.

This particular project is off of Gum Springs Road, a short walk from Mercer Middle School. The land for the project was donated by Greenvest.

The brick house will be built over the next two years, with every drop of sweat and every nail pounded coming from local students.

Dulles District Supervisor Steve Snow (R), who also spoke before the groundbreaking, said the students should have legacy in mind when working on the home.

“You are going to bring hammers and nails together to produce something,” he said. “That’s a noble effort.”

Along with Greenvest, Hayes-Large Architects, Triad Engineering, Timmons and TW Perry are partners in the venture.

 

(May 15, 2006)