For Tenth Year, Local Realtors "Fix A Home"

For the tenth year, local realtors are coming together to “fix a home” for a Chapel Hill family.

The Orange Chatham Association of REALTORS launched the Fix-A-Home project back in 2007. Each year, OCHAR selects a home in the Chapel Hill area – identifying homeowners who are physically or financially unable to make repairs on their own – and renovate it from the ground up, using all volunteer labor and donated materials. This year, about 75 volunteers and more than 20 sponsors are involved – including architects and tradesmen as well as manual laborers.

This year’s recipients are Paul and Belinda Caldwell – both longtime UNC employees and Northside residents who have lived in the same home for more than 40 years (and raised seven children there). Fix-A-Home organizers say this is their biggest project yet: the HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems will all be upgraded and every room in the house will undergo renovations.

Anne Hoole is the Fix-A-Home committee chair; Jackie Tanner is a Fix-A-Home co-organizer. They spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.