Somersworth Students Build Home For Louisiana Family

In a large warehouse at Somersworth Regional Vocational Center, about a dozen students are busy hammering flooring onto a frame of a house.
“42 This is floor sheathing, we’re basically just putting on the glue putting in the nails, putting in the sheathing so this is the floor of the house.”

Senior Bill Carol is directing some of the younger classmates who are furiously working on the home.
While most construction workers spend 8 hours at a job site– these students –mainly juniors and seniors - get 90 minutes a day.
But Carol says students want to be more than just “good enough.”
“This has to be perfect, that’s what I think, I like things I do to be pretty well done, and this I just want it to be the best house I can because it is for a really good cause”

The good cause is in Larose, Louisiana, a small community about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans.
The LeBouef family lives there, and is scheduled to receive the three bedroom, 11-hundred-square-foot ranch style home in June.
Doreen LeBouef says their family of five didn’t have much after tornadoes from Hurricane Katrina destroyed their trailer home.
“We lived in a trailer and we lost it for the storm the tornado, the whole roof blew off everything was exposed, everything was destroyed in it, we came home and we stayed here in our property and stayed in a pop-up and you know try to survive”

But just two weeks after the storm hit, the pop-up camper was destroyed by a fire.
The LeBouef’s twin 10 year-old girls barely escaped the fire without injury.

2:12 “we sat there wondering where were we going to go now, this was all we had left, everything we owned was in that popup, what we had brought with us”

A nearby church in Cutoff, Louisiana had already received a truckload of supplies from Grace Community Church in Rochester New Hampshire.
Somersworth Building Trades teacher Brian Patterson - a member of the Rochester church – suggested the congregation do more for the hurricane victims, and asked if his students could build a home.
1069 :30 we mentioned to them we had the ability to do this but we wanted to make sure that if we built a home, it would go to somebody as a replacement home, someone who had lost a home, could not be covered by flood insurance, and lost basically everything, a hardship case.

The Community Bible Church in Cutoff had more than a dozen applicants for the home.
Pastor David Fuquay says the church narrowed the field to five – but made the decision after interviewing the LeBouefs.
“They just wanted to get back to a level where life was normal, back into the trailer, so now that they have an opportunity to get a house, it’s such a huge blessing and they’re such sweet people and such a willing and deserving family.”

Ray LeBouef holds a steady job- and had just a few payments left on the trailer before it was destroyed.
But the family struggles, they chose health insurance for their kids over flood insurance.
Ray Lebouef says with so many people in his community struggling, it’s difficult to accept such charity.
11:19 it’s not something you want to happen to you, you’d like to do it yourself but in this situation, where am I going to come up with this kind of money to put up a house, and things are so hard right now, I just make enough to pay the bills, pretty much live check to check.

The LeBouefs say they were shocked to learn they’d get a home– especially from people they don’t even know.
“we can’t explain it really, it’s something that’s never happened to us before, like he said we still are like is it real you know, it’s something that would never happen in our lifetime, you know, own a home, we don’t know them personally it’s just something coming from God I guess”

(nat sound hammering)
The students building the home have yet to meet the LeBouefs.
But the entire school is now behind the project, called “No Place Like Home.”
Students have even designed a website.
Teacher Brian Patterson says since the project’s started, he’s seen changes in the vast majority of his students.
1072 : the thing that’s really impressed me is who the class leaders are now as compared to two months ago before this whole process came up and it’s changed, some of the kids who really didn’t care, now are the class leaders and its directly contributed to the project we’re working on.

Student Bill Carol admits he’s taken the lead on this project.
1090 :16 this is totally different it’s like, you’re giving someone a second life, it’s a great opportunity, I’m glad I get to have it, to help somebody else out that I don’t even know, to help them out is a really good feeling.

Students are building the house to comply with Florida high velocity hurricane codes – codes that are much tougher than those in Louisiana.
Spaulding High School Junior Casey Fontneau-Ramos says he saw the devastation created by Hurricane Katrina and wanted to do something to help out.
1092 2:30 it makes me feel a little better about the fact that I’m only in high school, I can’t really give a big donation to the whole thing so I suppose this is my way of contributing to the whole charity factor.

While students are using their muscle to complete the house, they’re relying on donations to complete the project.
Teacher Brian Patterson says building supplies will cost 33-thousand dollars.
While much of that has already been raised, they still need trucks and drivers to ultimately haul the house in pieces down to LaRose.
Patterson is hoping that with enough donations, students will be able to fly down to Larose to help assemble the house in June.
In the meantime, the LeBouef family has received a FEMA trailer to live in until the house arrives.
One of the first items they put in the trailer was the laminated and framed blueprints to their future home.
The LeBouefs joke as they look over the blueprints, envisioning their easy life once they move in.
23:50 the lazy boy in the living room and the remote in my hand to watch TV, the whole weekend without doing any work…It’s a dream, it’s a dream come true.

For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.