It will be a hut of a weekend Oct. 5-6, with Opportunity Village Eugene’s grand opening celebration 1 to 4 pm Saturday and Community Supported Shelters’ Conestoga fundraiser kick-off event Sunday. Neighborhood advocate Paul Conte will match up to $5,000 with money from the legal settlement with Capstone and its swanky new student housing project at 13th and Olive.

Community Supported Shelters (CSS), which has already built 22 Conestoga huts sited throughout the Eugene area (seven at OVE), is kicking off a monthlong fundraising effort to raise money for 13 more huts before the end of the year. Cornbread Café will hold a corn roast with music from 3 to 7 pm Sunday.

“People want to help, especially now that it’s pouring rain and getting colder,” says CSS Assistant Director Kristin Fay de Buhr. She says there are at least 50 people on St. Vincent de Paul’s waiting list for Conestoga huts.

Mark Hubbell, a resident of Opportunity Village Eugene (OVE), says his Conestoga hut was moved from the Church of the Resurrection a few weeks ago, and some of the 17 villagers will open their homes so that Eugene can see how the community is working. “We’re slowly but surely getting set up,” he says. “We’re on our way to achieving our part of the bargain with the city and the project, and that is being able to house up to 35 people.”

The grand opening will also feature music and other entertainment, and the beginning of what Hubbell calls “the aquapod,” a future shower and bathroom facility. He says that OVE is accepting donations, and they’ll find a way to get anything OVE can’t use out to people who need it. For information about supplies needed or monetary donations, call OVE’s front desk at 606-4455.