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REIDSVILLE - By next month, the gray, concrete block building that once housed the Jaycees will be home to a family of four.

Daniel and Marty Velazquez helped transform the longtime clubhouse on Walker Street into a three-bedroom, two-bath home for their family, which includes their son, Elisha , 7 , and Daniel’s mother, Beatrice .

The work marks the 23rd home for Habitat for Humanity of Reidsville since the nonprofit started in 1989 . But it is the group’s first such transformation from building to home, said President Eddie Green .

“It was a whole lot of work,” Green said, “but it’s probably going to end up being one of the better houses we’ve built.”

The family already has spent more than 300 hours helping build the home, which likely will be finished in late February. Habitat’s minimum “sweat equity” — contributing labor — for homeowners is 300 hours. Habitat keeps homes affordable by using mostly donated materials and labor, including that of families in the program.

“It makes you appreciate things a lot more,” said Daniel Velazquez, 45 , a Reidsville police officer. “You see what goes into it.”

He’s originally from New York and his wife is from Anchorage, Alaska. Before moving to Reidsville, they lived in Miami, where he worked as a deputy for the local sheriff’s office. But their once quiet, rural neighborhood soon became overrun with crime.

The last straw, Daniel Velazquez said, was when a 16-year-old was shot in the head for a $50 gold chain. The couple started looking for a better place to live.

The family arrived in Reidsville in August 2008 and found a rental home.

“We came here with just enough money to rent this house,” Marty Velazquez, 37 , said. “Then it was like, ‘OK, God, what’s next?’\u2009”

A coworker referred them to Habitat.

Volunteers have helped the family transform the old Jaycees building. All of Reidsville Habitat’s workers — even its experts — are volunteers.

The Jaycees donated the building, which has served as a meeting place for several clubs over the decades, Green said.

Habitat typically builds homes from scratch. Reidsville’s Habitat has, too, except for one existing home that was renovated and now the Jaycees building.

Habitat uses a basic blueprint for each home, including the Velazquez home, but volunteer Bob Vosburg tweaked it to fit both the existing building and the family’s needs.

He enlarged the master bedroom and moved closets. The windows have deeper sills than traditional Habitat homes. That’s a side effect of building out walls from the concrete block frame, Vosburg said.

The home will be better insulated as well, with insulation separating the concrete frame from the inside walls and the siding outside, he said.

“This home is really going to have a lot of little extra perks,” said Vosburg, a retired instructor who taught carpentry at N.C. A&T and GTCC.

Most Habitat homes have a porch or deck. The clubhouse already had a small porch in the front and the backyard was too high for a deck. So they’re building a patio .

But a new patio door was too expensive, so they traded some mismatched windows for a sliding glass door at the Habitat ReStore in Burlington, Green said.

Where Jaycees once served food and drinks behind a concrete block bar, the Velazquez family will prepare meals in an open kitchen at the front of the house.

“It was really a fun job to do,” Green said.

Even 71 -year-old Beatrice Velazquez, Daniel’s mother, has helped, carrying out pieces of concrete block that had made up a fireplace and the bar in the former clubhouse.

“It’s more than just putting in hours,” Marty Velazquez said. “It’s a way to let people know we understand and appreciate everything.”

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com