LAKE WORTH, Fla. - They were shorter than their paint rollers and their hard hats were a little big, but the job of painting a Lake Worth house was not too tall or too big for first graders from Palm Beach Gardens.
"I invited all of my friends from first grade so we could all get together and build a house," Cole Grande said.
Grande, 7, is a first grader who has always had a love for building and the philanthropic group effort was his idea.
"When I was three I started to build Lego's so as I got bigger I started building bigger Lego's and I thought it'd be cool to build a real house," Grande said.
The students weren't necessarily building the house on Saturday morning in Lake Worth.
With help from their parents, more than a dozen Benjamin School Buccaneers painted a Lake Worth house being built by Habitat for Humanity.
"It's really cool and to engage all of his friends you know," Michelle Grande, Cole's mother said. "He did a lot PR at school and telling his friends to go home and tell their Mom to go to the house with us."
Arielle Decoteau and her 5-year-old daughter are the ones who will be moving into the Habitat for Humanity home off South E Street in Lake Worth.
She's happy the kids were helping out and was grateful of all the work they were doing.
The house being painted was one of about 30 different houses that Habitat for Humanity is building and rebuilding in the older Lake Worth neighborhood to give the area a face lift.
Many of the neighboring houses are old and somewhat rundown.
"I didn't want to live in a neighborhood where all of the houses look the same," Decoteau said. "I wanted some character so I'm excited."
The single mother is also happy because the homes are being built to help low income families.
Decoteau said she's getting zero percent interest rate on her three bedroom, two bathroom home.
"I'm so blessed to have come across this opportunity because the way the market is now," she said. "I really don't think I would've been able to own a home."
In a month, she said the house will hopefully be ready for her to move in.
As for the first graders, Grande said he plans to help paint more houses in different neighborhoods for Habitat for Humanity including one in Jupiter.
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