create a fat footer with three columns for widgets

Hi,

Thanks for creating and making available the Tempera theme. It is really good in that we can change lot of the features suit our need. I just want to create a footer with three columns in one row to insert widgets. Bit like the cryout section, but I want to insert text boxs and other widget. How do I go about doing this. I read that it involve changing the theme function php. when I go to this section in edit there is instruction not to change the php. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks.