Boerne groups help family with repairs

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
The Housing Repair Team at First UMC, Boerne, and Golfers Fore Others gave one family a reconstructed home in Boerne recently.
Fred Martin, a member of both organizations, said someone at First UMC alerted him to the family’s situation. The groups decided to join forces to offer help.
The Boerne family, who asked for anonymity, had five children living at home. They had bought a “fixer-upper” home, Martin said, and planned to renovate it. Soon after buying the home, the father had a stroke, dealt with a recurrence of polio symptoms and became a candidate for triple bypass surgery, halting the original renovation plans.
“Not much could be done to the house then,” Martin said. “A member of our congregation became aware of the situation and referred them to the housing repair team.”
In January 2007 the family moved into a vacant parsonage so the groups could begin work on the house—because the work was extensive and could not be done with the family at home.
“The situation was significant,” Martin said. “(The house) was habitable, but we moved them out because we couldn’t do the amount of work that needed to be done with them there.”
Volunteers turned the one-and-a-half-story home into a two-story home, built a bathroom upstairs, sheet-rocked the entire structure, refurbished the kitchen and a bathroom downstairs, and added a laundry room.
The family moved back into the home in August, Martin said.
They were happy to be back home, he added.
“This gives them a sense of hope,” he said.
The Housing Repair Team has been involved in projects like this one for many years, Martin said. The team averages nearly one project a year.
Homes are typically in the Boerne area, Martin said.