Success Story

Joseph is a veteran who served our nation well. Now retired and living on a meager fixed income in the small Appalachian community of Pine Ridge in McDowell County, West Virginia he struggles to keep food on the table and his bills paid each month.

And that's where Americans Helping Americans®, our grassroots partner there, teams of volunteer college students and our supporters come in.

Each spring, dozens of applications for the home rehabilitation program are considered the households most in need, such as Joseph's, are chosen.

In his case, one of the first priorities was repairing the bathroom floor which appeared to be a relatively simple job of only having to replace the top floor.No such luck. When the volunteers got there tearing out the top floor they discovered that the subfloor was also rotted out, and then when the subfloor was torn out, it was determined that the joists were rotten.

Once they had the entire floor and joists out they realized that the walls were also rotten. And once they had those out they realized "the plumbing was a nightmare," and on top of that the pipes were lead.

Of course, it couldn't be left like that so by the time it was all said and done, Joseph essentially had an entirely new bathroom.

It took three teams of college students working under the supervisor of an experienced contractor an entire month to complete the job which was dubbed "the never-ending work project" by the organizers and volunteers.Some people may think we are doing too much for this one home, but we disagree.

How much is "too much" for someone who served our country?