HOWELL – Around 80 volunteers showed up to help landscape a home for an injured veteran.
Homes For Our Troops, a publicly funded national nonprofit dedicated to building and donating specially adapted custom homes for severely injured post-9/11 veterans, hosted the volunteers.
They came to help landscape the specially made house for Army Major Darlene “Dolly” Harris, who was severely injured during her time serving our country in Iraq. Due to the injuries she sustained during her service, Dolly has needed a wheelchair just to get around her own home and has faced a lot of struggles because of it.
Volunteers at the event were responsible for preparing the outside of the house by doing the lawn care and landscaping that had to be done before Dolly moved in. They did such things as laying down sod, planting flowers, and spreading mulch around the yard.
Dolly’s new house will give her more independence in her own life as it comes specially equipped with more than 40 major accessibility modifications, including widened doorways, an open floor plan, roll-under countertops and sinks, a roll-in shower, automatic door openers, pull-down shelving, generators, and safe rooms. All of the veterans get to decide where their new house is located, and Dolly chose to set up her primary residence right here in Howell.
Dolly shared how this new, handicap accessible house will help her out in her daily life.
“It is going to be so much easier to get around. My current house is not easy to get around in. I have damaged the walls and doorways in my current house because it is hard to move around in,” she said. “It is going to make a big difference for me; it will be a big improvement for my quality of life.”
She also mentioned how it will reduce the time it takes her to do most tasks and how it would alleviate a lot of the strain on her caretakers as well.
Dolly is just one example of what Homes For Our Troops does for our injured heroes. Their goal, according to the vision statement posted on their website, is to enable every severely injured post-9/11 veteran and their family to rebuild their lives. According to the website, nearly 90 cents out of every dollar spent has gone directly to program services for veterans. Homes For Our Troops builds these homes where the veteran chooses to live, and continues its relationship with the veterans after home delivery to assist them with rebuilding their lives.
“Even though we are a charity, we don’t believe that our mission is charity. That is not how we look at it, we really look at it as the moral obligation of the citizens of our country to care for these veterans and their families who voluntarily served….it is our country’s responsibility to take care of them because they voluntarily served and have sacrificed greatly so that we can continue to enjoy the freedoms we have today,” said Homes For Our Troops President/CEO Brigadier General USA, (Ret) Tom Landwermeyer.
With the prep work for the house nearing its completion, Homes For Our Troops will hold a handing over the keys ceremony for Dolly on Saturday, December 13 at 10 a.m., after which she will be able to start living in the new house.
To find out more about Homes For Our Troops, visit hfotusa.org.
