Event to raise funds for Carpenter’s house

Tickets are now on sale for the Harlem Ambassadors basketball game, an event to raise funds for Student Activities Hub secretary Melissa Carpenter's planned Habitat for Humanity home.

The Feb. 12 game will pit the Ambassadors against the Hattiesburg Habitat Hoopsters, a team of local volunteers, in William Carey University's Clinton Gymnasium. Tickets are available in Union lobby from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and at the Student Activities Hub. Advance tickets for students cost $7, and $8 at the door.

Carpenter's planned three bedroom, one and a half bathroom single family home will be located in Celeste Place, Hattiesburg Habitat's first subdivision of homes. Carpenter's house will come furnished with appliances, thanks to a national partnership with Whirlpool, and will also have a porch and yard.

Carpenter has not seen the plans for the house yet, but she says she had the opportunity to choose her own cabinets, flooring, siding and roof.

The build is slated to begin on Friday, March 5. According to Andrea Dixon, executive director of the Hattiesburg chapter of Habitat for Humanity, Carpenter's house will cost between $55,000 and $58,000 to build and will need about 75 workers per build day. There are eight build days (four weekends) scheduled in March, so the house will take about a month to complete.

Carpenter has been living in an older, overcrowded house with family members for the past several years, according to Josh Duplantis, assistant director of USM's Office of Community Service Learning. This home will be the first she has owned.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held at the build site on February 4, and Dixon is encouraging USM students, faculty and staff in particular to volunteer due to Carpenter's affiliation with the university.

"We're dubbing this house the USM house," Dixon said.

Carpenter will receive the keys to her home during the home's dedication, tentatively scheduled for April 10.

"I am thankful for Habitat for giving me this opportunity and to make a childhood dream a reality," Carpenter said.

To sign up to volunteer and for information on the charity basketball game, visit www.usm.edu/ocsl.