For three Carter County families, this weekend will be full of making memories as they will celebrate the holiday by moving into their new homes.
On Friday, representatives of Eastern Eight Community Development Corporation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program held a special ribbon cutting for the three new homes located in the Patriot’s Place development.
All three of the families took part in a special Mutual Self Help Housing Program through Eastern Eight and Rural Development designed to help residents become homeowners by putting work into not only their own homes, but homes for other families as well.
“The program is modeled after the Amish and Quaker methods of the community coming together to help each other build their homes,” said Retha Patton, executive director of Eastern Eight. “All three of these families helped each other and worked to build each others homes.”
As part of the requirements to qualify for the special program, the participating families had to put in at least 30 percent of the labor into building the homes and also had to attend classes and workshops that covered a variety of topics from how to maintain their new homes to financial management and avoiding bankruptcy.
These three homes are just the first phase of the Mutual Self Help Housing Program here in Carter County, Patton said.
“We have a second group already lined up and we hope to get started on it in the next 30 to 45 days,” she said.
The families were also joined in the celebration of their new homes by local, state and federal officials, including U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-Tenn.).
In his remarks, Roe thanked Eastern Eight, Rural Development and USDA for their hard work with this program to help families become homeowners and said he hoped more federal funds could be made available to support the program.
“Perhaps in the future we can shift some funding away from programs that are not needed and funnel it into projects like this that help people,” Roe said, adding he thinks it is important for lawmakers to attend events like the ribbon cutting for these three homes so they can see the successes and realize how important programs like Rural Development are.
Roe also praised the families who were involved in the program for their hard work and willingness to help others.
“When you have three families working together to accomplish something, maybe Congress can try that too. What a unique idea that would be,” Roe said.

Two of the families — the Pickel family and the Miller family — were in attendance at the ribbon cutting and they shared their thoughts on the program and what it meant to them.
“I was able to take some stuff I learned in the military as well as from my job at Lowe’s to help build our home,” said Justin Pickel. “For me, it was a wonderful learning experience.”
His wife, Kayla Pickel, said she really enjoyed the classes and felt she learned things that will help her and her husband better care for their home and their family.
“I really enjoyed working with and getting to know the other families,” Kayla Pickel said, adding she is happy they will be her neighbors and that their children will grow up together. “We all just helped each other out.” The Pickels have two children — a son Maddox and a daughter Olivia.
Matt Miller spoke on behalf of his family — wife McKenzie and daughter Kyndall —and thanked everyone who had helped make their dream of owning a home a reality.
“We are just really grateful for the opportunity and we are really blessed to be here,” he said.
Eastern Eight Community Development Corporation offers a number of programs and services designed to help create and preserve affordable, accessible housing in the eight county region of East Tennessee, which includes Carter, Johnson, Unicoi, Washington, Sullivan, Green, Hawkins and Hancock Counties. For more information on Eastern Eight or its programs, visit their website at www.e8cdc.org or call them at 423-232-5097.