We'll build you a house for free," Auburn University professor Samuel Mockbee told Anderson Harris. At the time, Anderson and his wife, Ora Lee, lived in a jerry-built house with little insulation, a leaking roof, and paper-thin walls. A scarce and contaminated water source prevented them from simultaneously washing clothes and getting a decent glass of water.

In answer to the professor's offer, Anderson said, "I don't think I'll take one of those today." His life thus far precluded believing in a house-for-free promise. The elderly Hale County man relented after pleas from his daughter on behalf of her mother who uses a wheelchair.

For generations, many people in Hale County have endured hardscrabble lives in unimaginable conditions. In many ways, life on this slice of earth near the Black Warrior River remains virtually unchanged from the days when James Agee and Walker Evans recorded its poverty in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

"It became really clear to me that this region of Alabama, because of its economic circumstances, would be the ideal spot for students to come and help in a small way," says Samuel, called Sambo by most.

Today, Anderson and Ora Lee reside in the wheelchair-accessible Butterfly House--its soaring roofline suggests a winged creature. The angled roof allows rain to collect in a cistern. A sewer purification system keeps drinking water from two community wells clean.