It Takes a Village to Build a Home for Conjoined Twins

(July 30) -- At the age of 58, the world's oldest living conjoined twins, Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, have spent plenty of time exhibiting the wonders of the human body. But over the last few months, they've shown that the human spirit can be far more wondrous.

During that time, the twins have inspired an entire community to donate time, labor, materials, guidance and even food to help build their much-needed new home.

The house, just outside of Dayton, Ohio, is an addition to the home of their younger brother, Jim, and his wife, Mary. Ronnie and Donnie moved in two weeks ago.

"They are elated, it's wonderful," Jim Galyon told AOL News. "They're truly happy here."

On Saturday, they get to say thank you.

The Galyons will celebrate with an open house and a barbecue, giving all of the volunteers a chance to see the finished product they helped create.

"It's just a fantastic thing to see it come through," said Pete Andrews, founder and director of the New York charity Christian Youth Corps Inc. (CYC), which organized the project.

"It's because hundreds of people cared, and did more than caring and talking," he said. "They actually did something about it. People could see their time, money and efforts go into something that made a big difference right in their backyard. I'm looking forward to shaking all their hands on Saturday."

The 936-square-foot home is customized to fit their needs. Four-foot-wide hallways offer them plenty space to move around in their new specially designed wheelchair. A unique bed accommodating the position of their bodies makes sleeping at the same time possible.

Like the home, the bed and the chair were donations.

And while the new comforts will give Ronnie and Donnie a much-improved quality of life, the new location is nearly as life changing for Jim and Mary. The couple has cared for the twins since 1991, making frequent trips to their previous -- and much smaller -- home four miles away.

"It's wonderful. Instead of having to drive across town to check on them, we just walk into the next room," Jim said. "It takes a load off."

When the project began a few months ago, CYC had just $224 in its bank account.

"That was gas money to get back to New York," Andrews said.

Yet the group convinced Brentwood Builders to donate its services as the lead contractor and assembled local volunteers to help with the labor.

"It was a challenging but very rewarding process," said John Harkleroad, project manager for Brentwood Builders. "The lion share that we did was the coordination of the effort, keeping all the volunteers going in the right direction and doing the right things and ordering materials and calculating things."

The company donated more than 300 hours to the project, along with some of the materials and labor.

There were times when the project was lacking funds and in danger of coming to a stop. But as word got out, the money started to come in.

"When AOL picked it up and AP, we started getting donations from all over the country," Andrews said. "People wanted to be a part of it."

The CYC received donations as small as $3 and as large as $15,000.

"Every dollar that came in was helpful, every nail in that bag helped," Andrews said.

And the volunteers kept showing up when they were needed, whether it was to hammer nails or put up drywall. For the landscaping alone, 30 people offered their services.

Now, nearly all the costs have been covered. The CYC hopes to receive just a few thousand dollars in donations to break even on the project.

"We are totally grateful," Galyon said. "It's just fantastic."