Did you know?
• Evergreen Habitat for Humanity has completed 31 homes in Clark County. Volunteers are working on three other homes now, including two being built primarily by students at Mountain View and Evergreen high schools.
• To qualify, participating families must be in substandard, unsafe housing. They also must be able to pay a zero-interest mortgage and related home ownership costs, and provide 250 “sweat equity” hours per adult or homeowner (or a combined 500 hours for a two-adult family.)
It was the focus of a high school math class and it was a volunteer project. In a couple of weeks, the Frost family will call it home.
Michelle and Charles Frost received the keys to their new house Monday afternoon during a celebration hosted by Evergreen Habitat for Humanity.
Did you know?
• Evergreen Habitat for Humanity has completed 31 homes in Clark County. Volunteers are working on three other homes now, including two being built primarily by students at Mountain View and Evergreen high schools.
• To qualify, participating families must be in substandard, unsafe housing. They also must be able to pay a zero-interest mortgage and related home ownership costs, and provide 250 "sweat equity" hours per adult or homeowner (or a combined 500 hours for a two-adult family.)
The house at 3603 O St. in Vancouver is the 31st in Clark County built by the nonprofit. The Martin Luther King Jr. Day dedication also was an opportunity for a lot of contributing partners to celebrate a job well done.
They included several high school students who helped build the house. Two Evergreen district high schools, Mountain View and Evergreen, offer a math class that features hands-on building experience.
Freshmen and sophomores in the Geometry in Construction classes at each school built halves of the house on campus last year. The two modules were trucked to the site on Oct. 10 and joined up on the foundation.
For students who’d only known it as a work in progress — and just half a house, at that — the finished product was an eye-opener.
“It’s surreal,” said Lana Kinghan, a Mountain View sophomore who took the class as a freshman. She did some drywalling, cabinet work and window installation.
“It’s really awesome to see it put together,” Mountain View junior Gabrielle Jensen said. She took on some drywalling chores that involved tricky angles, did a lot of exterior siding and plenty of painting.
“I ruined a couple of jackets” while painting, Jensen said. “But they were old jackets.”
On the plus side for Jensen, “I learned a lot more than in other math classes,” she said.
Other participants at the dedication involved members of the Habitat volunteer force. The project also was supported by Underwriters Laboratories, the Community Foundation and Grocery Outlet.
The three-bedroom house isn’t quite move-in ready. The power wasn’t connected Monday afternoon. There are some closing documents to sign before the Frosts move in — probably in a couple of weeks — said Josh Townsley, Evergreen Habitat’s executive director.
They do have some of the preliminaries out of the way, Charles Frost said. Their 8-year-old daughter, Serenity, has picked out her bedroom.
“We let her have her choice,” he said.
Two-year-old Charles Deacon will get the third bedroom.
Serenity has another move ahead, her dad said.
“She will move from Harney Elementary to Washington,” Charles Frost, a package handler at UPS, said. “She will make new friends there.”
This is the second house resulting from the partnership between Habitat and students at Evergreen district high schools. The first was built during the 2012-2013 school year.
Two more student-built homes are on the way. Enrollment has grown so much that classes at both Mountain View and Evergreen will each build a complete house this year.
And that might not be the extent of student involvement.
Eli Alvarez, another Mountain View junior, said that she’s done taking the class, but she might participate in a future home-building project as a community volunteer.
“It was a privilege, helping a family in need,” Alvarez said. “I may help another family.”
