A gift of home and happiness

When Blake VanderWert called her son's school to report that he needed to miss the day on Friday, she found herself struggling to explain why.

"A -- press conference?" she offered, wondering if anyone would buy it.

She was telling the truth.

The street outside her modest home in New Prague was closed down. Rows of chairs and television cameras appeared. The mayor and police chief turned up. VIPs from Washington, who didn't all know how to even pronounce the name of her town, shivered in the cold.

The wife and family of Sgt. Jonathan VanderWert, now serving in Iraq, had just become the first Minnesotans to benefit from a new national program aimed at helping military families by fixing up their homes.

They chose a wife left for 15 months with nine kids in a dilapidated fixer-upper that they'd bought on the cheap and that her husband had expected to spend three years putting right.

Now, in "Extreme Makeover" fashion, that was all to be collapsed into just a few weeks, thanks to a houseful of volunteers.

"I just wanted Sheetrock for the boys' bedrooms -- and a bathroom door would have been nice," Blake told the assembled crowd. "Jon would be -- is -- overwhelmed."

So was she, when she was led to the back of a big truck overflowing with new appliances for her family: new washer, new dryer, new fridge, new stove, new everything.

"You need to understand," she said, "that I didn't even have a dishwasher before now."

With nine kids, she added: "That. Is. Major."

The VanderWerts are among the first 30 families chosen by a program called Heroes at Home, a cooperative venture between Sears and the Washington-based nonprofit home-rehab agency Rebuilding Together.

Two families become one

Two years ago, the couple, blending a family with children from each of their previous marriages, bought a proud old 1890s-era 2½ story brick home a couple of blocks off of New Prague's historic main street. Staying home while Blake worked and tending to so many children, including babies, Jonathan wasn't able to accomplish much before he was called up in August.

When volunteers arrived, walls and ceilings were missing in parts of the house. Wiring hung out of walls. Only one bathroom worked. A 1950s kitchen was stuffed into a narrow addition in the back.

Jonathan, however, speaking by video clip from Iraq, proudly pronounced it "a classic," as if it were a '60s Mustang pocked with rust. "Hopefully," he said, addressing the assembled volunteers via a screen and projector set up in the light snow on the street outside his home, "you will see my vision."

A few minutes earlier, as the home's ancient stained bathroom fixtures lay dumped in the back yard, one volunteer asked another, "Will it be all-new porcelain fixtures?" The droll reply: "I hope so."

T.J. Cantwell, national director of veterans housing for Rebuilding America, stood nearby. "Our first campaign, May through July, raised $1.3 million," he said. "With that we plan to do at least 100 homes by next July. Several other Minnesota families have contacted us, needing assistance."

By the end of the day on Friday, Blake reported, "they'd ripped out carpet, demolished the kitchen, removed plumbing and begun framing the bathrooms. They hope to be painting by the first week of December and to finish by Christmas."

Most of the kids were in school, but Michael, a seventh-grader, was present to bask in the attention. The beaming seventh-grader described the new home, from its barren living room, as a place where "I can have a bunch of friends over and we're going to be chillin.'"

There's more to that comment than you might think, his mom said later.

"All the kids are extremely excited. They are so happy just to have the stability of the temporary home that someone locally here has anonymously donated for us to live in. They have walls and reliable heat and a bathroom door and they are lovin' it. With all the construction going on in our real home, even before now, they couldn't have anyone over. They haven't had that chance to be kids."

'Mini-military operation'

Gary Officer, the agency's president, estimated that $300,000 worth of time and supplies will be invested in the home, from a long roster of volunteers. Officials later e-mailed a list of 25 companies and organizations cooperating, in what amounted to a mini-military operation, right down to the tents sheltering donated breakfasts and lunches for the platoons of volunteers.

"An amazing effort," said Bink Bender, the mayor of New Prague.

The bottom line, said Blake VanderWert, is that her husband is free to "focus on what he's doing over there, instead of worrying about us over here." Via satellite, her husband echoed those words:

"It's a load off my mind," he said, adding:

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That about sums it up."

David Peterson • 612-673-4440

David Peterson • dapeterson@startribune.com