Groundbreaking Ceremony Held For Sartell’s First Habitat House

SARTELL -- Central Minnesota Habitat for Humanity held a dedication ceremony Wednesday afternoon to celebrate Sartell High School's first ever habitat house.

The district partnered with Habitat for Humanity to give students hands-on experience in building a house.

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Chad Johnson is the Executive Director for Central Minnesota Habitat for Humanity. He says their partnerships with area school district's on projects like this are invaluable.

They really wrapped their arms around this project, which is great for us. We're excited to build and sell this home to the new owners so they can move in and make Sartell their new home. It's just been an amazing experience.

Construction began in September and will wrap up by mid-May, when the house will be delivered to its permanent location.

Ryan and Bethany Cross, co-owners of BCI construction, donated the site for the house so it could stay in Sartell.

Ryan Cross says after hearing the original location fell through, donating their lot for this project seemed like a no-brainer.

They talked about the situation with the lot they were looking at and how there was some red flags with the site. My wife came home and said I think we should do this (donate the lot) and within five minutes the answer was yes.

Cross says programs like this are extremely important to the trades industry and he hopes to see other communities get involved.

The Sartell-St. Stephen school district is already planning for their second habitat build which will begin this fall.