Grand Island Area Habitat for Humanity is participating in its first-ever Home Builders Blitz.

Dana Jelinek, executive director for Habitat for Humanity, said work will begin Saturday, with the home at 1015 N. Beal to be completed in a week.

She said volunteers will complete staging and site preparation work. The plan is for the Habitat home to be framed and enclosed on Monday.

Jelinek said enclosing the structure will allow work to proceed on the home the remainder of the week, no matter what kind of weather hits Grand Island. She said the home should be completed on Friday.

In addition to the professionals, the Habitat partner family who will be occupying the home and a number of volunteers also will be working during the week.

Although this is a first-time endeavor in Grand Island, thousands of Blitz homes have been built across the United States, Jelinek said.

She said the first Blitz homes were built in 2002 by a very large North Carolina home builder who worked with a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. A number of firms in the construction trades were recruited for the project and Jelinek said 12 homes were built in five days for that local affiliate.

The following year, the local Habitat affiliate and the North Carolina home builder staged another Blitz and built an even greater number of homes in five days.

Since 2002, other local Habitat for Humanity affiliates have constructed Blitz homes, Jelinek said.

The national organization had a Habitat for Humanity Home Builders Blitz 2006, where local Habitat chapters and their partners were recruited to build Blitz homes all around the United States.

Now, the national organization is having a Habitat for Humanity Home Builders Blitz 2008.

Jelinek said 109 local affiliates are participating this year, including the one in the Grand Island area.

She said Brian Fox, president of the Central Nebraska Home Builders, and Amos Anson, vice president of the Central Nebraska Home Builders, helped lead the way in getting that organization interested in the Blitz build.

Members of the Central Nebraska Home Builders, in turn, got other businesses and individuals in the construction trades to donate materials or labor for the Blitz.

She noted Fox and Anson had been involved in the construction of previous Habitat homes.

Anson has been served as one of the site managers for the past two years on Habitat homes and as the construction manager responsible for ordering construction materials for Habitat homes.

On the Blitz home, Anson and FAmous Construction will  be the project coordinator.

Even though all Habitat homes benefit greatly from donations, one of the advantages of including professionals in the construction trades is the home will cost considerably less than even a regular Habitat home, Jelinek said.

Construction of the Blitz home involves definite division of labor among the various parties, Jelinek said. For example, one firm will provide the Sheetrock, another will hang the Sheetrock and a third will finish it. Likewise, one firm will provide the carpet and vinyl, while another firm will install the carpeting and vinyl flooring.

Despite this division of labor, talents and materials, FAmous Construction deserves mention as the project coordinator, with Central Nebraska Home Builders, Jerry’s Sheet Metal and Obermiller Seamless also playing major roles in the construction of the 2008 Blitz home, Jelinek said.

However, none of the other 32 construction  businesses or the seven corporate partners can be said to be making a small contribution, Jelinek said. That’s why the Blitz home probably will not become an annual project.

Jelinek said trying to build a Blitz home every year may be asking too much from volunteer businesses and individuals. However, the Blitz home could still be a recurring event. In talking to other Habitat officials around the country, one suggestion has been to try to build a Blitz home every other year.

“That’s the buzz,” she said.