August 27, 1999

BUILDING BEYOND THE BRIDGE

On the way into Selma, Alabama, I saw billboards advertising a special Habitat for Humanity build called "Building Beyond the Bridge". The local affiliate were planning to build twenty homes in a week between September 11-17 to coincide with Habitat's "Building on Faith Week". 250 Habitat affiliates around the world were building homes during that week for people needing decent simple shelter and to highlight the role of churches in Habitat's work.

The Selma affiliate were planning to build the twenty homes with members of 43 area churches - both black and white. It is the hope of the affiliate that this build would provide some unity between the churches of the different races. Selma was the site of a violent class between civil rights marchers and the Alabama state law enforcement officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. The marchers were trying to make their way to the state capitol in Montgomery.

I was planning to stay with the local affiliate president, Ed Heuker, for the night. Before it got dark, Ed took me out to the development site. The concrete pads for the twenty homes were arranged in small culdesacs. One of them was called "Unity Lane".

The Selma affiliate does something quite unique for their houses. They use "prefab frames" that are built and trucked in from Mobile, AL. The frames cost about eight thousand dollars. Ed explained to me that this cost is a lot less than what it would cost to buy all of the lumber needed for the frames locally.