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Project Horizon Raising:
Project Description
The following report was sent by Brian Richardson, president of Project Horizon's board of directors: "We dedicated Lisa's House yesterday afternoon. The staff will move in in two weeks. About another month before we're ready for clients. My remarks follow. I have saved some programs." | |
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November 1999Good afternoon to all in our community, and welcome to the dedication of Lisa's House, a gift you have given not only to Project Horizon and our clients, but to yourselves. I am Brian Richardson, president of Project Horizon's board of directors. Please join me during the next few minutes in our celebration of thanksgiving for this community effort.My colleagues on the board have had to sit through enough of my speech-making by now that they probably make bets on when I'll start crying. I suspect they won't have long to wait. I will be introducing you to a few very special people –- friends of Project Horizon and of this community who have been asked to say a few words -- in a few minutes. First, though, I want to say some thank yous. After we have heard from our speakers, I am going to say a few more. Some of you have heard me say before that those of us directly involved in the project were sure of something at the outset: If we had to build Lisa's House by ourselves, we would fail. We knew that this community would build it, and so you have. I'd like to show you a partial list of the people who have been involved in that effort. Here it is: (holds up local phone book) The way the effort for Lisa's House came together was a unique experience for us all. It involved a public/private sector coalition that survived for two years, comprising Project Horizon, the local student chapters of Habitat for Humanity, the Timber Framers Guild of North America, the administrations, staffs, dining halls, faculties and students of Washington and Lee and VMI, the city of Lexington and Threshold, and the state of Virginia. Without the support and active help of President John Elrod, Superintendent Josiah Bunting, City Building and Zoning Administrator Bill Blatter, Threshold Executive Director Joan Neel, the past and current presidents of student Habitat -- David Sugerman, Josh Beckham and Tim Koss -- and of Joel Chandler McCarty, Will Beemer and Grigg Mullen of the Timber Framers Guild, Lisa's House would not have happened. To those partners and their leaders, we are grateful forever. I wish to thank our clients for their courage, my fellow board members for their hard work, our executive director, Elizabeth Pharr, and our staff for caring so much. I wish to thank our new neighbors, who have already been good to us. I wish also to thank Cornelia Thompson, a remarkable, formidable woman, who embodies the heart and soul of this city, who saw what could be, maybe even before we did, and on whose land we would build Lisa's House. I wish to thank Lee Merrill, the architect whose early vision inspired us. I wish to thank Eli Fishpaw, the architect who turned a dream into a reality, and a sloping empty lot into a solid promise of safety for our clients. I wish to thank Andrea Warchaizer, who with other Timber Framers Guild architects turned that solid promise into massive wooden bones. I wish to thank our general contractor, John Gunner, and his staff, who said yes. They are men of infinite patience who understood from the outset what it meant to work with volunteers and those of us who were learning as we went what it meant to build a house this big.
 And I wish to thank Myra Vincent, the mother of Lisa Knick, and Kate Vincent, who are with us to cut the ribbon today and to hear our thanks. I salute their courage. |
 In a few moments I will invite you to join us in the church up the hill for refreshments. But I am going to take just a couple more minutes to say a few more thank yous. These are personal. To Ham Smith, my department head, and Larry Boetsch, my dean, thank you for letting me do what I had to do, sometimes during working hours. Thank you to my students, many of whom volunteer with Project Horizon, and others who got used to Professor Richardson stumbling into class a few minutes late in muddy boots and smelly jeans and a down vest so disgusting my wife won't even let me wear it to do the recycling anymore. And speaking of families, there is one in this community that already has four front row seats in reserved for them in heaven. They embody community spirit, and put that spirit to work. Lisa's House is just one way they have made this community better. They are the Mullens – Grigg and Cindy and young Grigg and Andrew. I believe that Grigg is more responsible than any other single volunteer for there being a Lisa's House. (I start blubbering.) He brought the Timber Framers in, and their nearly 20,000 hours of volunteer time. He got VMI involved. He provided engineering expertise, and lots and lots of students during three Field Training Exercise weekends. Whenever I got into a squeeze by promising more than I should have -- and believe me, that was so often it scares me now -- Grigg was my go-to guy. (Grigg starts blubbering.) I knew I would always hear him say "okay" on the other end of the phone. Lord knows what he said as soon as he hung up. My abiding memory of Grigg is from last July – hottest day of a record-breaking summer, as hard as that is for us to believe at this moment -- and we and some other sweet fools whom I also love were wrestling heavy 4-by-8 stresskin panels onto the roof. At one point I looked over at Grigg, and he was purple. We'd been pounding back Gatorade all day by the bucketful, but there's only so much fluid you can replace. I thought, "Oh, lord, now I've done it. I've killed him." Listen, you don't want Cindy mad at you. He went and got a drink and sat in the shade for about 10 minutes, until he saw me screwing something else up, and he wandered back up to me. "We having fun yet?" he asked. Believe it or not, Grigg, I was. Maybe we're both just big kids who like to build stuff. Finally, there is another family whom I want to thank -- my own. As you all know, Project Horizon sold pegs last spring that people could write a message on and have pounded into the timber frame where the pegs would hold the joints together -- a nice metaphor, the words you gave us holding Lisa's House together. Here is what Frances, my wife, wrote: "May your house be as happy as mine." (more blubbering from me) Frances and Aaron and Daniel have been a part of the blessing of working on Lisa's House from the beginning. They cut and planed timbers, swept floors, set drywall screws, made meals, raised money, argued for its very existence. Most of all they put up with a lot of me being elsewhere at dinnertime and homework time and bedtime and on Saturdays, and when we could have been fishing or playing baseball in the backyard or just hanging out together. Lisa's House and its volunteers have taught my boys much about what is best in people, especially about the way they respond to what is worst in people. I want to acknowledge the sacrifices Aaron and Daniel have made to learn that lesson. I am a writer and a teacher by trade. For nearly 30 years, the words I have been able to catch and pin down on paper have fed me and kept me warm. But when I try to say what Frances and Aaron and Daniel mean to me, the words run away and hide, because the job is too big. I love you; thank you; I'll be home soon. Will those do? Again, on behalf of our clients, thank you all for Lisa's House. May this house be as happy as mine. We will conclude with Jean Clark, our client services coordinator, who will lead us in a blessing. |