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Nearly 60 women showed up Saturday to participate in the 10th annual “Women Build” week sponsored by Lowe’s and Habitat for Humanity. The women went to work building a house for an all-woman family of a single mother, her two daughters and her mother. Above, Ashley Barron, receiver of the new home, participates in the construction.

Nearly 60 women showed up Saturday morning to get to work with Troy-Pike Habitat for Humanity and Lowe’s for the 10th annual “Women Build” week.

Dianna Lee, board member for the local Habitat for Humanity, said this year’s build is particularly special.

“This year is really special for us as this home is for all women– a single mother, her two daughters and her mother,” Lee said. “We had over 40 volunteers last weekend and closer to 60 this weekend. That’s exciting when you can get so many people out to volunteer for something like this… Without volunteers, Habitat wouldn’t exist.”

The home is being built for Ashley Barron, who was also out Saturday to help in the process of building her own home.

Kathryn Faircloth and Kayla Wright, both newcomers to building homes, talked about their first-time experience.

“I’d always wanted to help and the opportunity came up this past couple of weekends,” Faircloth said. “It was definitely something I’d never done before. It was wonderful trying to build a home for a family and they were out there working with us.”

Wright said she didn’t actually expect to be doing the construction part of the build, but was glad she got the chance to.

“It was interesting; I didn’t think we’d actually be doing the building and the hammering,” wright said. “I thought we might be carrying things to the workers, but I was glad I was wrong.”

Faircloth said the organizations made the building process easy for the women by dividing the workers into teams with experienced captains.

“They gave us an instructional guide beforehand letting us know what we would be doing that day,” Faircloth said. “Then they put us in teams and our team leader told us how to hold the tools and gave us a good rundown of what we would be doing.”

“We Just paid attention to what our team leader said and she had been involved in projects before,” Wright added.

In addition to helping a family in need, Wright said the construction work was empowering.

“It was kind of empowering because construction and hard labor is thought to be a men’s task,” Wright said. “Getting out and building a house that was for all women and work-ing next to women that would be living in the house – that was really cool.”

Lee said some “celebrity” women also made stops by to work on the house.

“Our celebrity – so-to-speak– was Chanda Rigby with the Troy University women’s basketball team,” Lee said. “Stephanie Baker, city councilwoman for District 4 where the house is located, also came by and both women worked for several hours.”

Faircloth said she’s encouraging other that want to give it a try not to hold back.

“I would encourage anyone who thought about it to give it a shot,” Faircloth said. “It’s a wonderful feeling when you’re finished; it makes you feel good to do something for others.”

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