Partnership brings new affordable homeownership opportunity to Mississippi Delta

GREENVILLE, Mississippi — The walls for a new Fuller Center home in Greenville have already traveled a long way — and they carry plenty of good wishes with them.

Members of Peace Memorial Church in Chicago prefabricated the walls for the home, writing blessings on the boards before Fuller Center house leader Dave Diffendal transported them hundreds of miles south to Greenville.

Beginning Sept. 27, those walls will begin becoming a home for first-time homeowner Charmell Daniels.

The project is a partnership between The Fuller Center for Housing and Together for Hope through its “Together We Build” program, bringing volunteers together to provide an affordable homeownership opportunity in the Mississippi Delta.

For Daniels, the project is especially meaningful. She has helped others find and build homes of their own, and now she will have the opportunity to partner with volunteers to build hers.

“This is a blessing for her to be getting this house, and it’s a blessing for all these people coming from all over to help,” her father, Terry Gales, told Delta News. He added that the build will give his daughter an opportunity to pitch in alongside volunteers and “have the community come together as one.”

Diffendal said donations from individuals, churches and other supporters from across the country are making the project possible. The build will bring those supporters together with local partners, volunteers and Daniels herself to construct the home.

It also is intended to be just the beginning of The Fuller Center’s work in Greenville.

Diffendal told Delta News that The Fuller Center and Together for Hope hope to build at least one new home in Greenville each year. The upcoming project will be a “blitz build,” with volunteers completing much of the construction in just a couple of weeks.

For now, the walls built with love and covered with blessings in Chicago are waiting in Greenville. On Sept. 27, volunteers will begin raising them around a first-time homeowner.

Delta News recently visited Greenville to talk with Daniels, Gales and Diffendal about the upcoming build and the partnership making it possible: