DURHAM -- Six months ago, poverty, and its elimination, was the dominant theme in Durham Mayor Bill Bell’s annual “State of the City” address.

Ruth Tolman, Assistant Director for Student Life at the Duke Fuqua School of Business says about 400 first year grad students worked on the streets of Durham, all week, helping renovate homes with Habitat for Humanity.

"They're working on six homes. Two of them they're doing deconstruction and demolition on to prepare them to become new homes and then four of them they are finishing various stages of new construction, from putting up floor systems and walls to finishing touches on painting."

The students work, which concluded on Friday (Aug. 15), focused on homes in northeast central Durham, an area designated by Mayor Bill Bell as the “battleground” for the city’s fight against poverty.