For three hours out of each school day, advanced building trades students at Floyd County High School leave the classroom to put what they’ve learned into practice — working with a contractor five times a week to help renovate a new home.
It’s the first time the students have partnered with the Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing, or FISH, a local nonprofit leading the second phase of a county-wide housing rehab program.
The students are working on Brandi Casket-Beardsley’s home, located at 393 Storkers Road south of Floyd off Virginia 8. Her home was first repaired by FISH in 2023, when the organization installed new porch stairs and fixed a hole left by a bear.
Casket-Beardsley, who was living with her three daughters, said FISH contacted her about a month later and asked for her home to be part of a Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development Community Development Block Grant initiative.
A roof in poor condition and lack of gutters had created leaks into the home’s ceiling, causing mold and mildew issues.
Casket-Beardsley said she was skeptical at first, because more than a year had passed before she got the news that her home qualified.
“It was, like, a whirlwind. I got the call, and next thing I knew, I was packing up my house and moving out,” said Casket-Beardsley, who is living with her daughters in an RV while construction is ongoing. “I mean, what I’m receiving is a blessing beyond compare. But just some of those memories, a lot of memories, had to be gone. Stuff like that was a little bit sad, but the excitement of it all far outweighs that.”
Program funding comes from the state block grant, which awarded the county $1.2 million in 2025. The second phase of the Floyd Scatter Site Rehab will rehabilitate eight homes — including Casket-Beardsley’s — four of which require substantial reconstruction because they are too deteriorated to renovate cost-effectively.
“One thing for us was to not only give them [the students] hands-on skills, but also show them compassion and to be able to help others in the community because without this particular build here, this family probably would not have decent housing,” says Ross Snead, who has taught the high school class for nearly 15 years.
With this particular build, Snead said he aimed to fine-tune the students’ carpentry skills and expose them to other potential job opportunities outside of pursuing a college degree.
“It’s getting worse because people like myself are aging out and moving on, and there’s not enough young people going into the trades to fill all those positions,” Snead said about the trends he has noticed in the home construction industry. “There are other ways that you can make a very good living without spending with all that money and possibly going into debt.”
The students began their work in the middle of August and expect to finish their part within six to seven weeks.
“It’s nice to just give back because some people don’t have quite nice things and they don’t have the job or money to really pay for those things,” said one of the students, Riley Mills. “Giving back to them and making life easier for them is really just nice.”
The county housing rehab program includes partnerships with multiple nonprofits — the Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing (FISH), the Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, Community Housing Partners, New River Valley Regional Commission, Habitat for Humanity of the New River Valley and Renovation Alliance
“It’s the beauty of what we have created here. With the grant and FISH, and we work with community action social services, it’s networking at its best,” said FISH co-founder Susan Icove.
Housing rehabilitation efforts began in the county in 2017, when Icove worked with volunteers on the weekends with limited funding resources.
Key funding came two years later, when Icove presented the organization’s efforts at a regional housing conference. A state housing representative encouraged Lydeana Martin, the county community and economic development director, to apply for the Community Development Block (CDB) Grant funding.
“We looked at housing needs around the county. It was well over 800 houses that were in fair or poor condition based on just our county assessment,” Martin said.
Over $1 million went to the project’s first phase in 2020, with 14 homes identified for rehabilitation — but the price and availability of materials became issues during the COVID pandemic.
“The money did not stretch because of materials going up so high during the pandemic,” said Icove, “all the wood and everything, it slowed the whole project down as well as the costs.”
The second project phase reflects what is capable with resources provided, with plans to apply for more CDB grant funding in the future, Icove said.
“What the grant people really like about what we’re doing in Floyd is the partnerships, it is that we have many people jumping on board to help,” she said, adding that “while we started kind of slow, ever since, we’ve been doing about 15 plus homes a year.”
