When someone you love passes away, it is hard not to get extremely depressed and picture yourself moving forward from the situation. This is exactly what 14-year-old Sicily Kolbeck wanted to avoid when her father passed away. Rather than feeling depressed and hopeless, she focused her sadness on something greater.
She built a house!
It is a fully finished 128-square-foot home complete with a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom.
Her and her father were extremely close. She considered him her best friend.
He really wanted to teach her some amazing life skills so they worked together to build a house.
“Building a house would give me the life skills that really matter, such as using tools for construction. Building the house I can know what labor goes into a home and truly appreciate what I am living in.”
This 14-year-old quickly picked up the construction jargon from her dad and learned how to safely use his power tools.
Then on February 16, everything ground to a halt: Sicily’s father was killed in a car accident.
Not before long, Sicily and her mother were overwhelmed with support from loved ones and neighbors who would stop by the house to lend a hand with the myriad of tasks that go into building a house.
From start to finish, it took Sicily and her many helpers a year-and-a-half of labor and $10,000 to get the job done.
What an impressive young girl. I love that she took something completely tragic and turned it into something beautiful. You know the saying about taking lemons and making lemonade, she for sure did that.