By Staff
GATHERED TOGETHER  Leisha Pickering, left, wife of U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, meets Kimberly Lloyd Wednesday at the blessing of a home to be built by Lauderdale County Habitat for Humanity. Photo by Paula Merritt / The Meridian Star.
By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
Aug. 22, 2002
Kimberly Lloyd's family marked off the site of its future home near the intersection of Fifth Street and 55th Avenue with colorful string Wednesday.
It capped off a site blessing that included comments and a responsive reading from Psalms 118:19-29 by Leisha Pickering, wife of U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss. She was selected as the local Women's Build project spokesman for Habitat.
She told Lloyd that she hopes her home will be filled with love and encouragement.
Lloyd, approved as a Lauderdale County Habitat for Humanity home owner in 1999, has been a volunteer home-builder since that time. She is anxious to start work on her own house.
A certified nurse assistant at Beverly HealthCare-Broadmoor, she said she will help build on her days off from work. Lloyd is a single parent. She lives in an apartment in Meridian with her two daughters, Kimbreshia, 6, and Khristain, 5 months.
Lloyd's new home, to be built by women in the community, could be completed by late October. Construction is scheduled to begin Sept. 13.
The home, designed by Mississippi State University School of Architecture students, will be built with preconstructed panels that will be fastened together to form the walls and roof.
Don Syde, construction supervisor for the Women's Build project, said the panels have been used in construction for about 30 years, but are gaining popularity now because the homes are more energy-efficient and can be easily built with unskilled labor.
Syde, a retired contractor from Lauderdale County with 40 years experience, has worked with the local Habitat program for a year.
He said workers on Habitat homes basically don't have any skills for home building, but they are eager to work.