Written by Ben Cox – A temporary community has sprung up on Avenue D between Durham and 1st Street, in order to make a more lasting community for Brownwood residents that could use a hand up.
Legacy Village is a project of the Brown County Home Solutions, designed to fight and eventually eliminate homelessness in Brownwood.
This week, the site is a flutter with the sounds of saws, nail guns, and men in hard hats and overalls. The men on site are part of the Texas Baptist Men, an organization that offers free construction to churches and projects like this one.
On site for only two weeks at a time, the TBM Builders are mostly retired construction workers and contractors who do the work as a ministry. All the group asks for in return is “a place to park our campers, electricity, water, and one hot meal a day” according to Tim Six, who is overseeing the Legacy Village construction project for TBS.
Six continues “Building for the glory of God is how this got started. It doesn’t say in the Bible that you have to build 30 churches before you die to get into heaven, we do it because we get a kick out of it and it helps others. We don’t get any money for this, its something we can do, so we do.”
Glenn Williamson, the building coordinator for Legacy Village, says that when the Texas Baptist Men have completed their two week tenure, construction will carry on with “volunteers from local churches, and anyone else who wants to get involved. We have one more slab already poured if someone wants to get started on that. We have the plans ready, we just need to people to do the work.”
For those interested in continuing the work started on Avenue D, they can contact Brown County Home Solutions through their website or Facebook page.
