An Alaskan District Judge and his son team up to volunteer with The Fuller Center of Webster Parish, La.
At The Fuller Center, we know we have some of the world’s best volunteers, but few have gone the distance like Judge Tim Burgess and his son Sam, 15, from Anchorage, Alaska. Before they arrived in Louisiana to visit relatives for Memorial Day, the judge spoke with Charlie Parks at The Fuller Center of Webster Parish about his desire to work with a local housing ministry.
Despite being on vacation, the father-son team were eager to lend a hand. Parks put them to work installing drywall on Webster Parish’s thirty-fourth house project for The Fuller Center. Sam, a basketball player, and his father, who stands at least 6’5”, hung the drywall with ease. Parks called the pair “great humanitarians” and expressed deep gratitude for their hard work.
Burgess is a judge for the Alaska District of the U.S. District Court system who previously served on the board of directors of the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Anchorage.
“I actually met Millard Fuller when I was in the Philippines on a Jimmy Carter Work Project several years ago,” said Judge Burgess. “He was a great man, and I can see why [the] folks in Webster Parish chose to follow him when he and his wife started The Fuller Center for Housing.”
The pair worked on the house for four days, but didn’t stop there with their outreach and involvement with the local housing ministry. Twice during the week, even after long hours of physical labor, they joined other Fuller Center volunteers to play softball from seven to 10 p.m.
Judge Burgess’s aunt lives in Plain Dealing, 15 miles from The Fuller Center’s office in Springhill, La. She contacted Parks to alert him about her nephew’s interest in doing volunteer work, and Parks followed up by contacting the judge.
“As they say, the rest is history,” said Parks.
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