Roof raisers
Tri Star construction raises roof trusses while LFS raises funds
The sounds of hammers driving nails into pine at the Lots for Soldiers home build were a little higher in the sky Monday morning as students from Tri Star Career Compact put roof trusses on the frame of the house. Piece by piece the project is taking more and more shape every day while the fundraising efforts also continue to rise.
“It’s going really well; I think we’re right on schedule or ahead of schedule,” said construction teacher Brett McGillvary. “I haven’t even had (the juniors) out there to help yet because it’s seems like we get so much done with the seniors.”
The project broke ground on Aug. 3 and work quickly began on the home for Corey and Tasha Stoker. Corey is a veteran of the United States Marine and currently works for the city of St. Marys.
The Stokers were chosen to be the recipients of the Lots for Soldiers home after Corey’s mother, Tammy, reached out to Lots for Soldiers to help the couple who had a laundry list of repairs needed on their current home.
With a fundraising goal of $175,000, Lots for Soldiers got to work gathering donations to cover as much of the cost of the home as possible. The last home Lots for Soldiers built was sold to the recipients — Paul Slone and Jennifer Barciz — for
$1.
Thanks to some generous donors and successful fundraisers, the current total of funds is at $73,833.
“We raised a little over $7,000 this year at our golf scramble, which is our biggest fundraiser to date so that was pretty amazing to us,” said LFS President Mary Rosengarten. “It was a beautiful day and a great turnout and we just had tons of support with the sponsors and just people coming out to golf. It was great.”
She’s was also proud of the success seen at the build site.
“They’re really moving along quite quickly,” she said. “Tasha and I went out a few weeks ago and took some snacks out to them and then this past week, I took some more snacks. We’re just trying to kind of make it a little bit more special for them by trying take some treats out there for them.
“They’ve been doing a wonderful job.”
McGillvary said now that the exterior walls of the house have been put up and the roof decking will be added throughout the week, the fast pace of construction will be able to continue.
“Even if it were to rain for a day or two, we can work inside,” he said. “We’ll put tar paper on the roof and house wrap around the rest of it and we’ll be protected from the elements.”
To date, the project has only lost one day of work while waiting for a lumber shipment to arrive.