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COLUMBIA, MO. -- A Columbia soldier and his wife got a new home on Veterans Day with a little help from some friends.

The Show-Me Central Habitat for Humanity and Columbia-based VAMortgageCenter.com dedicated the new home to Army Sergeant Chris Ruff and his wife Anne.

The Columbia home sits in a neighborhood near Creasy Springs Road and Proctor Avenue.

The young couple said their new home already has old memories.

“There are already so many memories in it even though we haven’t lived in it, yet," Anne Case-Halferty said. "We helped pick the base boards. We put a hammer through a few walls. It’s our home and we haven’t even lived in it, yet.”

“It’s an amazing step up in life," Sgt. Chris Ruff said. "To be rooted now, and have a house that is ours that we can call home instead of an apartment that we were living out of, it’s nice to be in a house.”

Habitat for humanity is not a givaway program.

In addition to monthly mortgage payments, new homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor into building their habitat house and the houses of others.