Marilyn Sherbon was going to lose her house.
Bills were piling up, and the 57-year-old former flight
attendant, who was severely injured in plane accidents and is now
on a fixed income, couldn’t afford essential repairs to her
Green Bay
home.
So Sherbon looked for help.
“First, I went to an organization that only helped
renters, but they gave me a name and that person gave me another
name, and eventually, I hit the right one,” she said.
The right one was Rebuilding Together of Greater Green Bay,
one of five Wisconsin chapters of the Washington, D.C.-based
national organization, which repairs homes free of charge for
low-income owners who can’t do the work themselves, particularly
the elderly and disabled.
Sherbon’s house is one of 13 that will be repaired for
free this year by the
Green Bay
chapter.
“I never imagined this even happening; it’s a
godsend,” said Sherbon, a single mother of two sons – a
20-year-old who serves in the Marines and a working 19-year-old
who lives at home. “They wanted to keep the house so bad, but it
didn’t look feasible. They were so upset.”
Helping
hands
Sherbon underwent two back fusions, and she is now limited
to doing things in 20-minute segments before her condition acts
up.
“I thought (Rebuilding Together) was just a great need –
not to take away from Habitat for Humanity, which is a great
program too – but ours is different because it focuses on the
elderly and disabled,” said Mark Bonovetz, who serves on the
chapter’s board of directors and is a safety director and
project manager for Howard Immel Inc., a Green Bay general
contractor that is sponsoring Sherbon’s home repairs. “Their
houses are decent, but they don’t have the money to get work
done and can’t do it themselves.
“Instead of building new, we fix up the homes that they
take a lot of pride in.”
Bonovetz said Howard Immel will completely re-roof
Sherbon’s house, replace several windows, install an exhaust fan
in the bathroom to prevent water damage and pull out two sections
of concrete in the driveway that are impacting the house’s
foundation.
“When she drives on it, you can feel the house shake,”
he said.
Several of Immel’s subs, including electrical and HVAC
contractors, will also donate their time and efforts to the
project.
“When we’re done, (Sherbon) should be able to live here
the rest of her life with no worries,” said Bonovetz.
In its 19-year history, Rebuilding Together has worked on
more than 100,000 homes nationwide and provided $1 billion worth
of home rehabilitation services. Other Wisconsin communities with
Rebuilding Together branches are Greater Milwaukee,
Fox
Valley
,
Manitowoc
and
Sheboygan
.
Day’s
work
Repairs often include landscaping, painting, roofing, fixing
electrical and plumbing problems, windows, carpentry, laying new
carpeting and installing new fixtures. All work is overseen by
trained plumbers, electricians and carpenters, who volunteer their
time.
In
Green Bay
, Carpenters Local 1146 sponsors a house, while Plumbers and
Steamfitters Local 400 spreads its volunteers around to all the
job sites that need plumbing work done.
For the most part, the work is done in one day, and this
year’s rebuilding day falls on May 19.
“Howard Immel gives us a half day on Friday, we work (at
the house) until dark and then finish everything up on
Saturday,” said Bonovetz, who praised Immel’s employees for
their response to the program. “It’s amazing to be able to
touch someone’s life, and not even the people we help but our
people in the field or office. When they see how grateful (the
owners) are, it’s an incredible thing for our people, too.”
And Sherbon, who has lived in her home since 1996,
couldn’t be happier.
“I just can’t believe it, I had tears is my eyes when I
found out,” she said. “The house was not in good shape when I
bought it, and while my sons did a lot of work, they don’t have
the knowledge to replace a roof, not to mention the money.
“I was looking for a fairy godmother and found one. And
they are super people, so nice and concerned, I feel like I
don’t deserve it. I’m a very lucky person.”
