A vacant lot in Fountain will be transformed into a sea of orange Wednesday and it won’t be pumpkins in the patch.

It will be an army of 400 or so Home Depot volunteers in company colors who will there to build six homes in a new project by the Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity.

The volunteers, who are coming from across the country, hope to build three foundations, frame the walls for three other houses, erect 1,000 feet of fence and build 20 sheds in the new Country Living subdivision.

It’s part of the Home Depot Foundation’s efforts to create affordable housing for U.S. military veterans, said Kendall McCarthy, a foundation project director.

“Each year we get everybody together — Home Depot associates and our vendor partners — for our Community Building Invitational,” McCarthy said. “We have people coming from Florida to Seattle to California. It’s an opportunity to give back to the community.”

For the past year or so, the Home Depot Foundation has focused on veteran housing projects. She said the foundation spent $30 million in 18 months on the cause and now plans to devote another $50 million in coming years to the mission of “ensuring every veteran has a safe place to call home.”

She said Home Depot employs upwards of 35,000 veterans at its home improvement stores nationwide and 1,500 or so active military.

Paul Johnson, executive director of Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, said his nonprofit was happy to be involved in the project.

“Two years ago we did a project with them and had 600 people,” he said.

He’s excited to be launching another new neighborhood, which follows the Woodmen Vistas, a 10-acre subdivision near Woodmen Road and Powers Boulevard where Habitat and the Rocky Mountain Community Land Trust are building 68 affordable homes.

Although Habitat doesn’t typically screen its homeowners based on military service, it will look for veterans in its applicant pool to find qualified buyers for as many of the 34 planned Country Living homes as possible, said Andy Petersen, Habitat’s spokesman.

“We’ve been looking for veteran families,” he said, noting that there are about 50 names in its existing applicant pool undergoing screening as potential homebuyers at Country Living, an approximate four-acre tract north of downtown Fountain sandwiched between two railroad lines.

Plans call for the chosen families to be able to move in by May.

McCarthy said she expects the volunteers to hit it hard during their Wednesday blitz.

“We don’t anticipate finishing in one day,” she said. “But if this groups holds to our traditional work ethic, we should get quite a bit accomplished.”

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A blessing was held Friday for the start of construction of a home being built by Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity at its new four-acre Country Living subdivision in Fountain. Photo by Courtesy Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity

Three foundations are under construction by Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity at its new four-acre Country Living subdivision in Fountain. Photo by Courtesy Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity

The first six houses in the Country Living subdivision being built by Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity will be along the south side of Bunting Avenue in Fountain. Photo by FlashEarth.com