For years, one of Americans Helping Americans® main missions has been to help low-income homeowners, primarily the elderly and disabled, with critical repairs to their homes to fix leaking roofs, sagging floors and more, as well as to provide handicap ramps to enable them to enter and exit their homes safely and be able to remain in the homes they love.
Over the years, Americans Helping Americans® has worked with our partners in Tennessee, West Virginia, and elsewhere who vet applicants and arrange for mission groups to spend a week volunteering their time and talents to make repairs, with Americans Helping Americans® providing the funds for the materials such as shingles, lumber, and drywall.
Last year, with the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in place, for the most part the our partners’ home repair programs had to be canceled out of an abundance of caution.
But this year, we are pleased to be able to report that home repair projects have been able to resume in a safe manner.
Among our partners who perform home repairs is Of One Accord in Rogersville, Tennessee which just reported that they were able to complete repairs on two homes this month.
Thanks to our supporters, an elderly couple, Albert, and his wife, who had just gone through the amputation of her right leg to the knee due to diabetes, received a handicap ramp and other repairs to their home.
Through its Operation Good Neighbor Emergency Home Repair program which serves residents in Hawkins and Hancock counties, Of One Accord Executive Director Sheldon Livesay told us that they had been looking for families whose homes were in desperate need of repair or a handicap ramp such as Albert’s and his wife’s, “then pray a mission team will take on the project.”
His prayers were answered when the first mission team, members of the Mell Baptist Association of Tipton, Georgia came from more than 450 miles away, to selflessly work to repair the two homes of strangers in need the week after Easter.
At Albert’s home, the team repaired the porch which had become disconnected from the roof of the mobile home, rebuilt the steps on the porch, and built an extended wheelchair ramp so his wife could easily access her home.
At the second home, Cathy’s porch roof and house roof had been incorrectly joined, causing the leaking of water into the home, which the team repaired. In addition, the volunteers repaired roof damage, replaced rotten wood on the porch with all-new lumber, and made plumbing repairs in her kitchen.
“This grant funding from Americans Helping Americans® helps us to serve a desperate need in rural Appalachia,” says Sheldon. “Many of our clients live at or below the poverty level and coupled with a lack of ‘know-how’ to conduct major repairs needed in their homes, they risk serious injury to themselves.
“Because of the Americans Helping Americans® grant money, we are able to repair many of these homes and better the quality of life for so many Americans in our area.”
