Throughout the semester students in the Construction Technology and Management program learned the principals of construction. However, this was the first time they got to take what they learned in the classroom and apply it to the real world. In two weeks the students plan on building two houses as part of what Linda Sonnier, program director for the CTM program calls a house blitz.

While attending Louisiana Tech Sonnier worked with the Fuller Center on a modular housing project. After getting a job with BPCC Sonnier continued her work with the Fuller Center via her students in the CTM program. Since the spring of 2008 semester Sonnier has invited students to build houses for the Fuller Center.

“In our methods class we are learning about wood frame. [Students] learn more today about what wood frame is than I could teach in two weeks worth of classes. You have to do it to be able to learn it,” said Sonnier
Lee Jeter, executive director of the Fuller Center, agrees.

“It’s a win-win for us and the [college]. The students get the hands on experience and we get the volunteer labor we need to facilitate our ministry as far as building houses for those in need,” said Jeter.

The BPCC students not only worked on two houses, but they also worked alongside the future occupants.

“It’s a lot of fun because you get to work side by side with them and they are just happy to be here to help and so are we,” said Lisa Dumas, president of the AGC student chapter.

Although working along side those in need of housing, Sonnier does not believe the students understand the gravity of their charitable work.

“[Students] do not even realize yet how important what they are doing is. It will hit them over time as they talk about it with people that they know. Right now they are having fun and that’s great too,” said Sonnier.

However, one thing the students clearly understand is their effort.

“Everyone needs a place to live. Knowing you built something and can drive by and say you built that, you put that together, and it makes not only that person feel good but yourself feel good; it’s indescribable,” said Ernest Blackstone, a student at BPCC.

Yolonda Braziel, the future homeowner, was amazed at the selflessness of the students.

“It’s amazing because (these people) I don’t know just gave their time to a stranger. The reality of it has not set in yet. It’s an extraordinary experience to be a first time homeowner. That is something I never thought I would achieve in this lifetime as a single parent of seven,” said Braziel.

© Jim Potts – nwlanews.com

Her four-bedroom home she is helping to build in Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood is taking form quickly and already has walls, a roof and a concrete floor.

The house is one of two being built by The Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana and dozens of student volunteers as part of the nonprofit’s fifth anniversary celebration. Since Hurricane Katrina, the organization has built 40 homes in Allendale, but that count will soon be 42. The homes should be finished by May, and there will be a dedication March 20 at the site on Alston Street.

“This is just the beginning,” said Executive Director Lee Jeter Sr. “We’re starting in Allendale, but we’re going to duplicate what we’re doing in Allendale across northwest Louisiana, across Shreveport, Bossier, Cedar Grove, Queensborough and Mooretown.”

About the homeowners

Name: Yolanda Braziel
Age: 40
Occupation: Cook/manager

Motto: “Tragedies are a common fate. Through it all God never saw fit to let none of these things be for me.”

In her words: As a single parent of seven, I never thought that I would be able to begin to own a used home, let alone a new home.

My life changed about two years ago when my job caught on fire, and they laid all of us off. The house that I was living in I could no longer afford, and I had to move into my grandmother’s house, which was vacant for about two years. We tried to fix it up the best we could, but with the income I had I wasn’t able to patch the holes in the walls, the plumbing was raggedy, just really a mess.

Somebody went to the community police and told them about me and my family. They made the house livable, but it is still bad off. The Fuller Center was a part of it, too.

They patched up the problem, but Mr. Jeter said he wouldn’t be satisfied until I got something decent.

This has renewed my faith and my confidence and has helped me to have a new independence.

I appreciate the smallest things: not even having a sink and now being able to wash my hands and have a clean sink. We didn’t have air, and now I’m going to turn the air on full blast. The main thing I’m looking forward to is a living room.

I’ve been talking to the volunteers, and it means a lot for someone to give like that to someone they don’t know.

Name: Delisa Robinson
Age: 30
Profession: Housekeeper

Motto: Psalm 23

In her words: I was heading to Memphis on a cruise ship from New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. My parents got caught in the storm, and they were stuck in the house for three days. They lost everything.

They were on a bus for 12 hours heading to Shreveport, and I joined them when they got settled in an apartment.

I started working with the Fuller Center to get a house in 2006, but I stopped putting forth the effort when they said I needed more hours at work and my pay wasn’t enough. I moved into my own apartment to build credit because if I could pay for somebody’s property, I could pay for my own. In 2009, Mr. Jeter sat me down, and I really listened to him this time.

I paid all my credit off and took my income tax check and gave him a down payment. And it has helped me to look into buying more houses.

I love paying bills. My mom says I’m crazy, but it just releases my spirits and makes me free. And God has blessed me every day. I thank God for my momma and daddy because they encouraged me to buy a home. I’ve never had this feeling, but I’m going to take it and run with it.

I love the volunteers, and I thank God for them because without them how would we get it off the ground?

© Nicole Blake Johnson – Shreveport Times

“If they go on a bus, you know you can’t carry too much food on the bus,” said Rosie Chaffold, Allendale resident. “Many times after you’ve bought your 50 dollars worth of groceries you only have 10 extra dollars to pay somebody to take you and bring you back.”

Chaffold says there are corner stores in the community. However Chaffold says the food is not always fresh or affordable.

The Fuller Center for Housing hopes to open the grocery store by the end of the year.

Reported by: Amber Miller

# The Fuller Center for Housing will host 50 Cameroonians from West Africa the week of March 15-21 for its next housing build. The center needs 25 cultural ambassadors to ensure guests are comfortable and looked after during their stay in the Shreveport-Bossier City area. French speakers also are welcome, but the language is not a requirement for volunteers.

The center also needs male hygiene product donations and clean linen donations for an upcoming house build project.

# The Cloverdale Learning Center in Bossier City needs tutors to help school-age children with homework and preparation for the LEAP test. Hours and days are flexible.

# A group of volunteers is needed March 26 to assist with the Suicide Prevention Conference. Volunteers will assist with sign-in, direct participants and more.

# The Salvation Army is seeking volunteers, who must be at least 18 years old, to answer phones and assist visitors. Hours are regular business hours weekdays.

For more information about these volunteer opportunities, e-mail volunteers@unitedwaynwla.org.

Shreveport Times 2010

A partnership was formed that is now helping residents in other cities as well. The Fuller Center builds houses; CRI builds community. Together, we are “Building on Higher Ground” to help those who lack the resources and the relationships that could make home ownership possible on their own.

The vision goes beyond building houses for a few. We are building hope for many. Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood – an area of decaying houses, high crime and little income – was chosen for the launch of the “Higher Ground” initiative. With hundreds of volunteers coming from throughout the nation, this once forgotten neighborhood is now a place of new hope and new beginnings that is receiving worldwide attention.

Community Renewal International

A garden grows where trash and bottles once filled a vacant lot. Children gather on a playground built by a local service club. Residents who were once too frightened to come out of their houses now laugh and eat together at neighborhood block parties.

“Many years ago this was one of the worst communities in the city. Homicides, crime, gang activity – you name it and it was here,” said Jewel Mariner, one of two CRI Community Coordinators in Allendale. She lives in a Friendship House that has become an anchor for the neighborhood.

“It’s amazing to see the transformation in people’s lives and in this neighborhood. People used to just call this The Hill. Now it’s New Hope Hill. People in the community now have hope.”

By the start of 2007, little more than one year after work started, 23 new houses had been built in the community. Each one has its own unique features, designs and color schemes. Several of the new homeowners have become CRI Haven House leaders and now reach out to others in the neighborhood.

“I want to be a light on the hill. I care about my community and I want us to come together,” said Dorothy Wiley, who made a new start in Shreveport after she and her family were trapped in the New Orleans Superdome for four days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home. “You build a neighborhood by being a neighbor to everybody. You develop relationships one person at a time.”

The Higher Ground project was launched by Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity and then later of The Fuller Center for Housing.

“We are here to transform this city. We have the opportunity to make this one of the most beautiful cities in the country,” he said. “It’s so exciting that Community Renewal International and the Friendship Houses are here. You can build houses, but if you don’t build community, it will all fall apart.”

The area’s story is no secret. Formerly thriving blocks decayed into buildingless, overgrown lots. But that is changing slowly.

Nonprofits and churches such as People of Praise, Community Renewal International, Habitat for Humanity, Mt. Canaan and Galilee Baptist churches and the Fuller Center for Housing have built dozens of homes and apartments that provide housing below market and at competitive prices. That has happened in conjunction with government plus help from private businesses.

But residences alone can’t restore a place, according to elected and unofficial community leaders. So commerce and other amenities must come next.

Allendale native Claude Marshall is trying to do that with his family’s Dale Street Grocery and Deli. The business has been open nearly a year in a building that housed a former store before it burned.

Garden of Hope - © Douglas Collier/The Times

Marshall takes a hyper local approach in his enterprise. He doesn’t sell alcohol — “seeing as how it’s destroyed the neighborhood” — and is hoping to get involved with WIC — which stands for Women, Infants, and Children — and provides money to get food for mothers and their young children.

“When you’ve got to pay somebody $5 to get something that cost $2, it just wouldn’t be feasible,” Marshall said, alluding to the cost of taxis or public transportation being too expensive. “They want something to eat without having to walk a long way to get it.”

Marshall, 55, is glad his business has seen its first Thanksgiving: “I’m in the black. I’m not in the red. I thank the loyal customers that come in every day.”

Shreveport City Councilman Calvin Lester, who has represented the neighborhoods since 2002, is thankful for business owners like Marshall.

“We have built houses and we have put people in those houses. But the thing that needs to happen now is focusing on the entrepreneurial opportunities and the economic development for the area,” Lester said. “I have said that there are some things that government does well, and there’s others it does not. I think government can build houses, but it takes more than just governmental intervention to rebuild communities.”

Empty parcels of land don’t just happen. Between 1970 and 2000, the population in Allendale shrank from 16,247 to 5,982. During that same time, Shreveport’s total residents grew nearly 10 percent from 182,064 to 200,145.

But besides new houses, Allendale and Ledbetter Heights residents have found other creative ways to rebuild.

The appropriately named Rosie Chaffold takes care of the Allendale Garden of Hope and Love. She’s a familiar face to neighbors — who honked and waved while driving by on a recent Tuesday — and she’s received media attention and accolades over the years for her work with dirt.

With lots of help from the LSU AgCenter and volunteers from outside the neighborhood, she provides plenty of green stuff for neighbors to eat, free of charge, plus well-kept flower beds. And all on a street corner where she and police say folks used to meet “for something stronger than that — something illegal.” And that would have been drugs.

But since 2001, Chaffold said, neighbors who used to ask her why she tried to make a difference occasionally stop by to help her with gardening. Now she feels gratified but hopes more nearby residents will join her. The work and the food, she said, are the bounty.

“When you’re in a garden you feel like you’re next to God, close to the Earth,” said Chaffold, a Mer Rouge native who has called Allendale home for more than three decades.

Ruth Peace has seen more changes in Allendale than Chaffold. The 89-year-old woman has lived on Buena Vista Street, where she raised a family with her late husband, since 1960. She eats a vegetable or two from the community garden now and then, and she appreciates the work that goes into it.

“I’ll be 90 years old come next August, so you know I have a whole lot to be thankful for,” Peace said. “It has changed. But there’s always room for improvement.”

By Adam Kealoha Causey • acausey@gannett.com

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091128/NEWS01/911280318/1060

For Allendale, Night Out’s crime awareness message hits particularly close to home. It is a neighborhood revitalized, said Shreveport police Cpl. Lonnie Haskins, who has been assigned to that district since he joined the force in 1997 and attended Tuesday’s event along with other police officers and firefighters.

Parents were grilling out and chatting with each other while children laughed, ate hot dogs, made sidewalk art, jumped in a bouncy house and explored a fire engine.

“In ‘97, ‘98, ‘99, we were bumpin’ and gunnin’ out here,” Haskins said of Allendale, where at the time at least five calls for service poured in each night. He’s seen the neighborhood turn around, something he said he never envisioned could happen and for which he credits the Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana and Friendship Houses.

Sherry Brown, 40, works for Community Renewal International and lives in one of the two Friendship Houses in the 1500 block of Clay, where trim and prim affordable houses built by the Fuller Center line the streets.

Harkening back to the neighborhood’s violent past and in the spirit of Night Out, Fuller Housing recipient and neighbor Dorothy Wiley, 55, made a poster with a clever acronym.

“Let’s say no to:
“C-arrying concealed firearms without a permit
“R-ape
“I-llegal possession of drugs/firearms
“M-anslaughter
“E-ntry of an inhabited dwelling.”

She posted it on the front door of one of the two Friendship Houses.

Rudolph Glass Jr., 45, and his wife immediately began to regret their decision when they bought a house on Clay 12 years ago. Not so now.

“Things really started to change when they put the Friendship House in. And ever since then it’s just been getting better and better and better,” said Glass, who has manned the grill at each of the past seven Night Out parties.

Community Renewal International’s Brown says it all starts by meeting the needs of neighborhood children, which works as a domino effect in involving their parents.

Glass’ 15-year-old son, Rudolph Glass III, has attended after-school programs at the Friendship Houses the past seven years. As the high school student helped tear down equipment from the party and carry boxes to cars, his father explained that he’s involved in the neighborhood association and attends parent meetings in a neighborhood he didn’t want to be a part of 12 years ago.

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911040314