AmeriCares HomeFront

To Fix Local Homes This Weekend

Senior citizens living on fixed incomes, single-parent families, disabled residents, and financially limited neighbors have waited patiently in the hopes that their homes would weather this past, harsh winter.

The reward for their patience is in store this weekend as thousands of volunteers from more than 125 nearby faith-based, civic, and corporate groups complete their plans to remedy the deterioration of local homes through free repair assistance during the 17th annual AmeriCares HomeFront Day

Eleven community groups will be revitalizing nine homes in Newtown, Sandy Hook, Bethel, Danbury, and New Fairfield this weekend.

Participating teams include Newtown Congregational Church, two teams from the Knights of Columbus in Newtown, Newtown Lions Club, GE Commercial Finance, St Edward the Confessor Church of New Fairfield, St Stephen’s Church Youth Group of Ridgefield, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury, the United Jewish Center, the City of Danbury team, and the AmeriCares team.

Throughout Connecticut and New York, 105 properties are on the agenda to be revitalized including 13 community centers.

From the standpoint of the participating volunteers, the equivalent of ten weeks of labor are concentrated into one HomeFront day. Volunteers contribute 3,360 hours to pack, load, and haul materials to project sites, apply 5,252 gallons of paint, haul away 16 trailer loads of debris, and use nearly 90,000 building supply items and materials.

By the end of the weekend, a total of 2,050 projects will have been done since the program began.

HomeFront is one of three domestic programs of the AmeriCares Foundation, a private, nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization that provides immediate response to emergency medical needs and supports long-term healthcare programs for all people around the world, irrespective of race, creed, or political persuasion.

For more information, or to help, call 800-887-HOPE (4673).