WOUNDED LOCAL ARMY VET GETS HELPING HAND
A good cause: Home Depot, Vets for Vets, team up to fix up house
Michele Labant has owned her Cherry Street home for about 10 years.
But with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, she estimates she may only have spent about four years actually living there.
As a result, maintenance has been an issue.
Those issues multiplied in July, 2011, when the armored truck Labant was driving in northern Afghanistan was hit by an explosive device.
Three soldiers were killed and five injured, including Labant, in the explosion.
A civilian processor for the Pottstown Police De- partment, Labant suffers from traumatic brain injury, a herniated disc, and back problems that “go down into my left hip.”
“I still fall down and lose my balance a lot,” said Labant, who spent eight years and 11 months in the 131st Transport Unit of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, service which included tours of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was during a tour in Iraq that Labant met her fiancee, Bill Gallucci, whose Connecticut Army National Guard unit was short by 30 soldiers.
He is still in the service and based in Connecticut, so his ability to get to Pott-
“We help whenever we can in the community, but this project was special.” Jessica Morrotto, manager of the Home Depot store in Lower Pottsgrove
FROMPAGE 1 stown and help Labant with work around the house remains limited.
And that’s where Home Depot comes in.
As part of a recent push to have its “Team Depot” projects focus on helping veterans, $15,000 worth of work was recently undertaken at Labant’s home.
The work involved a new walkway in the back of her home; a wall repair and new back steps; an atrium over the back door to the garage to prevent ice from building up on the walk; a platform to raise up the home’s washer and dryer so Labant does not have to bend over to use them and a major bathroom upgrade, said Jessica Morrotto, manager of the Home Depot store in Lower Pottsgrove.
“We help whenever we can in the community,” Morrotto said, “but this project was special.”
She explained that while stores in the chain regularly undertake quarterly community service projects, the corporation recently “challenged us to find ways to give back to veterans.” And give back they did. “We walked through the house with Michelle and asked ‘if you could get everything done that you wanted, what would it be?’ and that’s how we got our to-do list,” Morrotto said.
The project was sizeable enough that it required applying for and receiving a grant from Home Depot’s foundation. The $15,000 covers all the materials but, thanks to volunteers from the store, the labor is free.
Brian Blymiller is another kind of veteran, the kind who has been at the Home Depot on Armand Hammer Boulevard since 1992.
“I work at the pro-desk,” Blymiller explained as he took a break from cutting wood for the garage atrium.
“We came out and did the wall repair yesterday so we could beat the rain,” he said as water sloshed in the grass beneath the boots of the volunteer workers.
“This morning we pulled up the brick from the walk, salvaged the ones that were still good because Michelle asked us to, and tomorrow we’ll finish up inside,” he said.
Home Depot is not the only business to lend a hand, Blymiller said.
When he called Ryan Schwenk, who owns Dumpster for You in Boyertown, and asked for a dumpster to hold the debris from the stairs, Schwenk donated the dumpster and his company’s services, Blymiller said.
But there was also another crucial piece in put- U.S. Army National Guard veteran Michele Labant stands with her fiancee Bill Gallucci as she watches workers from Home Depot doing work projects on her Pottstown home. Employees from Home Depot work on the property of U.S. Army National Guard veteran Michele Labant. Workers from Home Depot donated their time and materials to help the wounded warrior who was injured while deployed in Afghanistan. ting the puzzle pieces of this project together.
The landscaping in the yard, new alongside the new fencing, is bordered with the bricks Labant saved from the walk. But it was not the Home Depot volunteers who put them there.
Rather, that work was done by volunteers from Vets for Vets, a two-yearold Pennsburg-based nonprofit organization founded by Jake Leone that works as a local network to connect vets who come with whatever they need.
“We help veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan who need help finding housing, a job, getting new training or who come home to a divorce, or get into trouble with alcohol or other substances,” said Leone, who himself just transferred from the Army Reserve to the Air National Guard.
“We just ask the vets to perform some community service in return,” he explained.
Leone said his organization, which has no paid staff, found out about Home Depot’s efforts when a different store hung some blinds at the renovated post office which serves as the group’s headquarters and temporary housing for vet-
Employees from Home Depot along with Vets for Vets and Pottstown VFW 780stand together with Pa. Army National Guard veteran Michele Labant before getting started doing renovation work to her Pottstown home. Pictured are her fiancee Bill Gallucci, Home Depot store manager Jessica Morotto, Kate Schussler, Lorri Trate, Jay Forsythe, Brian Blymiller, Mike Holowacz, Alan Simon and Jake Leone.
erans without.
“We knew Michele needed work done because she helped us out by giving us an old Ford Probe she had for a vet who needed a car,” said Leone. “That’s how we got plugged in to her.”
“We have a web site — www.soldertocivilian.org — where we sell hats and shirts to raise money and we could handle maybe $1,000, but $15,000 was a little more than we could muster,” Leone said with a laugh.
So he put Labant in touch with Home Depot and, after a bit of paperwork, things worked out.
“We couldn’t handle what her house needed but because we’re networked with Home Depot, I know about this push to give back to veterans,” said Leone, “and obviously, Michelle has given enough.”