On Tuesday, March 7th, our friends at Our Next Mission (ONM) dedicated a mobile home in the Pescara Lake community to John, a worthy veteran in need. As a part of our Habitat for Heroes program, Manatee Habitat partners with ONM to renovate mobile homes and improve the lives of at-risk veterans.
This unit renovation, in particular, was the most difficult project that ONM has taken on. It took 3 and a half months and almost 1,700 hours of volunteer labor. Having suffered severe damage from hurricane Ian, the unit was donated to ONM by Pescara Lake. After five weeks of installing new subsurface flooring, our teams reinstalled the carport and vinyl siding, painted the home’s interior, installed new cabinets, and
completely renovated the bathroom. Then once in pristine condition, we fully furnished the home so that all John needed to do upon moving in was buy groceries!
Army veteran, John, served for three years, during which he fought in the Vietnam war. He heard about ONM through The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. In need of a home, he put his name in a hat for the chance to receive this unit, and two weeks later, after going through the application process, he got the news that he was moving in! “It’s unreal,” said John. With the skyrocketing rental market, he was sure that he didn’t want to sign a costly lease. “I really didn’t want an apartment, so I was scraping my money together, and then this came along perfectly,” he said.
Manatee County Habitat for Humanity helped to fund the building materials for this project, and our construction team provided technical expertise for the logistics of the renovation.
