Great kickoff to the Legacy Build!

By Chris Johnson
Director of communications

My cabinmates here at Camp Caney just north of Minden, La., site of this year’s Millard Fuller Legacy Build, have shut off the lights on me. Oh well, it’s hardly the first time I’ve been without a light bulb over my head. My first blog of the night was truly brilliant, but you’ll have to take my word for it because the computer just froze and erased it. The joys of reporting from bayou country.

So I’m working on this blog in the dark, which means you’re gonna have to forgive any typos. But there was little else dark about this day, which started in the pre-dawn darkness of our departure from Americus, Ga., and is ending with the midnight darkness of northwest Louisiana.

There was an awful lot of Louisiana-themed fun at today’s kickoff for the Legacy Build, including an amazing dinner of jambalaya. There were even beads thrown and mardis gras-style dancing and parading. The Webster Parish Fuller Center’s Charlie Park inspired everyone, as did Fuller Center for Housing President David Snell … and a massive cake in the form of the entire Legacy Acres subdivison. This just might be the first Legacy Build where homeowners took their houses home to eat.

But one image will stick with me from tonight: Ginger Williams. Ginger’s family recently received the first new home built by the Ginger Ford Northshore Fuller Center in Hammond, La., since the Habitat and Fuller Center groups merged there. Ginger was moved to tears more than once as people talked about how 15 families here in Minden are about to have their lives changed. She is here with Ginger Ford Northshore’s Tamara Danel to pay it forward by working on homes for others. And you can read more about her this week at www.fullercenter.org. And speaking of the website, be sure to check all week to see what’s going on here. And share our joy and great work with others.

I’d better quit typing before my cabinmates throw me in the lake here where many of the volunteers are staying. Besides, gotta be on site at 7:15 a.m.!

Be sure to check out more photos from Sunday’s kickoff by clicking here.