The Development of Villa Linda Miller

The construction of Villa Linda Miller was a community effort. Each of the 165 families had to participate in the project daily over the almost two and a half years that it took to build VLM. There were weekly meetings to plan the work teams and discuss topics related to the building. Above, the community meets for the first day of work on February 7, 1999, machetes in hand. The first task was to chop through 22 acres of shrub brush!

The Honduran government lent the Villa Linda Miller community an old bulldozer to do the terracing and prepare the lots for the community...a huge job for one machine! Here, the first road in the community is cut. ~1999

The first project on the land was a 65,000 gallon water tank, seen in the distance, which was donated by CARE International. Here, you can see several work teams spread over the project, preparing the foundations of the houses. ~1999

Phase one of Villa Linda Miller is well under way! The Red Cross donated all of the materials for these three bedroom homes. The project was executed in phases, working on two of the seven blocks in Villa Linda Miller at a time. ~2000

The VLM community members put forth an herculean effort to build so many houses in so short a time. Many of the community members became expert builders through the process!

Villa Linda Miller is an equal opportunity project! Young and old, male and female: all pitched in to build the community. Here, community members work together to put together the rebar posts that will anchor the walls. It you look behind them, you can see that much work has already been done! ~2000

Oscar Garcia was one of the founding fathers of Villa Linda Miller and a true hero in the project. His battered white pick-up truck became the "dump truck" of the community. He basically donated it to VLM to haul materials, which he did daily for almost three years. Often, he hauled such heavy loads that we feared his axels would break in half! Above, Oscar stands on the lot that would one day hold his own home. This dedicated man died of complications due to diabetes in 2005.

Phase three of Villa Linda Miller moves to completion at the end of 2001! The red roofs donated by the Red Cross gave the community a very typical feel, recalling the red clay tiles of the Spanish colonial period.

Above: The completed eastern half of Villa Linda Miller, as it appeared in 2002. The community went for several months without electricity, but, as this pictures demonstrates, the lines were eventually hung. Below: the western half of Villa Linda Miller.

This aerial view of Villa Linda Miller (left) was taken from an American Airlines flight that was getting ready to land in Tegucigalpa. In it, you can see the completed community of 165 houses! The large trapezoidal space in the land is where we are now building the elementary school. The community to the right is Villa Madrid, another project built for the victims of Hurricane Mitch.