Paul and Belinda Caldwell have lived in their Chapel Hill home for the past 40 years.
Seven children later, the house needs a little TLC, including a hot water heater, new plumbing and repairs to damaged ceilings.
The Caldwells have been constant and involved figures in their Northside neighborhood and now the community is coming together to renovate their house.
The Fix-A-Home Project is an annual community service project undertaken by the Orange Chatham Association of Realtors (OCHAR) to give back to the community. The Fix-A-Home community is undertaking a big project for their 10th anniversary. What started out as simply rehabilitating a kitchen or painting a living room has grown into a full-blown house renovation.
Jackie Tanner, who has been working on the OCHAR committee since 1999, said she hopes to have the main construction finished by the end of September with the finishing touches done at the beginning of October.
Tanner said they hope to soon be able to help more than just one family a year. The OCHAR committee receives several applications a year, and then have to narrow them down, make site visits and take a vote on who receives aid.
“We have been doing it all very quietly," Tanner said. "While the media does come to the reveal, you don’t quite get the impact. If you see where we started, it’s a little more impactful. There are families living without hot water or a working AC unit. It’s difficult.”
Fix-A-Home is funded and operated completely by donations and volunteers. To commemorate their 10th anniversary, the committee at Fix-A-Home plans to raise $10,000, although committee chair Anne Hoole hopes to surpass that goal.
In 2015, the Fix-A-Home project had about 75 volunteers lending their time and services to help with the renovation, Hoole said.
