Twenty-two Marines from Ft. Leonard Wood spent their Saturday in Jefferson City helping on two River City Habitat for Humanity projects.
The group helped in getting materials off homes at 905 and 909 Harding St., which River City is working to rehab for families to live in once again.
"We're still building a lot of new homes," said River City Project Manager Kyle Kittrell. "We've got seven projects going on right now and five are new homes. These two are the rehabs, and it is very unusual to have them next to each other like this."
Kittrell said it was easy to get materials out of the inside of the homes, but they needed help with getting material and shingles off the roofs. Having the Marines help made that task easier.
"The shingles and other roofing material will be recycled," he said. "Once the siding is taken off we'll be ready to start over on the outside of the homes."
Kittrell said the families who will occupy the homes have just started in the Habitat program so it will be some time before the homes are ready to be occupied.
Before closing, the partner families for these builds will earn 350-450 hours of "sweat equity" as a down payment on their homes. They will pay a 25-year, no-interest mortgage to River City, as well as homeowners' taxes and insurance annually. Their house payments will help build future Habitat homes in Cole County.
Kittrell said the rain in recent months has tended to happened on Tuesday's, which is when they have regular volunteers at building sites. So when it does rain, the crews have come over to the Harding Street homes and have worked to get the insides ready for rehab.
When asked why would a group of Marines would want to spend a Saturday working instead of enjoying the pleasantly warm weather, Staff Sgt. David Sellers had a simple answer: "Why not?
"It's good to get out and volunteer in the community and help out," he said.
This group of Marines were from various bases across the globe - Okinawa, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and Camp Pendleton in California.
"This is the first time that Marines from Ft. Wood have come up here," Sellers said. "I asked some of the students if they wanted to volunteer, and they were on board. We don't have any particular skills for this. All the guys and gals here are heavy equipment mechanics, and we just wanted to help."
Habitat plans to start building their 100th home in the 1400 block of East High Street. A structure currently on the site will be torn down.
The hope is to start work in August on a 100-day build. Habitat would sell the house around Thanksgiving.