Habitat for Humanity of Southern Ocean County to conduct first-ever two-house blitz build

Habitat for Humanity of Southern Ocean County is gearing up for its first-ever two-house blitz build, in Tuckerton. The two family homes will be built side-by-side on separate vacant lots – one on the corner of Nugentown Road and Pharo Street and the other on Pharo Street – on Saturday and Sunday, May 10 and 11. The local volunteer organization purchased the properties a few years ago to help fulfill its mission to provide modest, decent housing and home ownership to qualified area families.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of planning, but at the same time it’s very exciting to build two houses at once,” said Greg Muszynski, director of operations at Habitat for Humanity of Southern Ocean County. “It’s one of those ‘you never know what you can achieve until you try it’ kind of things. It’s going to be a lot of fun because everyone likes to build. There will be plenty of work for everybody,” he added.

Photo via HFHSOC
Passaic Valley High School students help
the walls for the two houses in Tuckerton.

Over 60 volunteers from the Habitat Road Trip Crazies, based in Lynchburg Va., will travel to the local area to assist in the building process. The Crazies offer an extra set of working hands to small Habitat affiliates performing blitz builds. The group, which brings volunteers from all along the East Coast, helped HFHSOC with a building project in Stafford Township during the fall of 2012.

“It’s a bunch of like-minded people who like to build and travel. It’s a lot of manpower,” said Muszynski.

Students from Passaic Valley High School in Little Falls, N.J., where Crazies founder Tom Gerdy attended school, will began constructing the walls to one of the houses this past weekend. The walls have been built in sections and will picked up and assembled at the blitz build.

Last spring, the students contributed to a similar project in conjunction with Morris Habitat for Humanity. The volunteer effort is part of Gerdy’s mission to get youth involved in community service.

Anyone 16 or older who is interested in volunteering with HFHSOC's two-house blitz build may register online at hfhsoc.org/construction_calendar.php. For more information, call 609-978-9984.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.