LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- In May 2016, tragedy struck when a 17-year-old high school football player lost his life in a car accident, but one year later, his family and friends plan to keep his memory alive by building a house in his honor.
With help from Habitat for Humanity, the teammates of Christian Burns will assist his family and friends in building the home in Lafayette.
"It will be a great time working with all the other senior football players tomorrow when we start to build the house,” said Logan Robinson, one of Burns’ teammates at West Lafayette High School.
One of Burns’ most commonly used motivational phrases in the school weight room was, “one more,” which served as the theme to help raise money for the home.
"I think it is a great way to represent Christian and everything he was about. I think he is looking down on us now and happy,” said Jonah Williams.
More than $55,000 was raised to construct the home, but teammates said Burns would be even happier to know thousands more was raised, which will go toward building an additional house.
"Habitat is a wonderful cause,” said Eric Burns, Christian’s father. “It is going produce two houses in Lafayette and two houses in Haiti that are going be there for a very long time. That is an important legacy for our son."
Two community members will purchase the home the weekend of April 8.
"We are proud of him. Proud of his friends who have rallied around this,” said Marti Burns, Christian’s mother. “Proud of the community. We've had so much support. We're pleased to be in this community and now a part of Habitat that does so many good things for people. Christian would love that."
