Habitat for Humanity supports rare renovation project for Lakeland veteran's mobile home

LAKELAND — A few days before St. Patrick’s Day, a swarm of green-clad volunteers busily dug, sawed and drilled outside a mobile home in a rural patch of the Kathleen area. Posts went into the ground, preparing for a front deck and wheelchair ramp to be installed at the front of the structure.

Though it didn’t reflect the expected image, the activity was part of a Habitat for Humanity project. The Lakeland chapter of the international nonprofit is providing both materials and muscle to help the owner, Sunil Persaud, with a complete renovation of the decades-old manufactured home.

It is just the second time that Lakeland Habitat for Humanity has embarked on a renovation project rather than the construction of a new house, CEO Claire Twomey said.

Twomey became aware of Persaud’s need after he began making regular trips to ReStore, the nonprofit's retail outlet, which sells building supplies at discounted prices. Upon learning that Persaud was undertaking the renovation of his newly acquired home, Twomey encouraged him to apply to a program that provides assistance to veterans through the Lowe’s retail chain.

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“It was almost like a sign from God that he was giving me the answer, like, ‘You're searching and here it is. This is how we get to the next step. This is how we move forward, ” Persaud said.

Persaud, 35, qualified as a former member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps. In that role, he said, he worked as a paralegal, handling such matters as court martials, legal briefs and investigations.

The military gave Persaud a medical retirement in 2014. He said he is rated as 90% disabled, though he doesn’t want the details publicly known.

A native of New York City, Persaud came to Florida to attend the University of Tampa. He left without graduating to join the military but later returned to Lakeland, where his parents had retired, and earned a degree from Florida Southern College.

Persaud acquired the singlewide mobile home in 2021, after it had been abruptly abandoned by the previous occupants. He found it cluttered with furniture and other items and even discovered vines growing into the interior. Property records show that the home dates to the 1980s.

After a long process of clearing and hauling away the detritus, Persaud began stripping the interior down to bare exterior walls and ceiling, removing even the room dividers. The Persaud family — Sunil; his wife, Aruna; and their two sons, ages 1 and 7 — is living in a rental property while the work proceeds.

Persaud described the assistance from Habitat for Humanity as coming “out of the blue.” Twomey said Persaud qualified for a $20,000 assistance grant from Lowe’s, and Habitat volunteers have joined in the renovation project.

On a recent morning, volunteers were devoting most of their attention to building the deck and ramp after Ross Borton, the supervisor on the project, determined that the existing porch and stairs were unsafe for volunteers to use. The discarded stairs sat in the front yard, amid a pile of removed boards.

Some of the volunteers wore green shirts with the designation “RAMP CREW” on the back. One of them, Brian Jorgeson, said the crews normally volunteer with VISTE (Volunteers in Service to the Elderly), a Lakeland nonprofit that has constructed about 400 wheelchair ramps for clients in recent years.

Jorgeson and a few others also volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. Jorgeson, a 73-year-old retiree wearing goggles, ear plugs on a string and a tool belt, used a framing square to draw lines on a piece of plywood before cutting the shapes of stairs with a chop saw.

Joining the ramp crew were more than a dozen Publix employees taking part in a “Publix Serves” day, when the company encourages workers to spend a day volunteering. Some of those volunteers wielded shovels to dig holes for the posts that would hold the deck and ramp.

One woman stretched a tape measure to gauge the distance between two posts, while another held a level against a newly installed post. The occasional buzzing of power saws complemented the pounding of hammers and the whir of power drills.

A few volunteers used a set of makeshift steps to enter the mobile home through the back door. The structure, approximately 60 feet long and 15 feet wide, was bare inside except for a few remaining 2-by-4 boards hinting at where an interior wall had been.

Some of the Publix volunteers had placed blue tape along the junction of the floor and walls, covering a gap to keep bugs from intruding.

Shawna Funderburk, who works in the facility support division of the Publix corporate office, said she had helped remove the rotted deck outside.

“So when we first got here, we were in total demolition mode,” the Plant City resident said.

Funderburk, 32, had attempted to help install posts for the new deck but declared, “For the record, it's not easy to dig a hole.” She said it was her first time volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity project.

“I think it's an honor to be able to give back, especially to someone who sacrificed so much for our country,” Funderburk said. “So I'm definitely honored to have the privilege to be able to contribute in some capacity, and I'm pretty sure most of us all feel the same way.”

Another volunteer inside the home, Bill Ribblett, said he has been contributing with Habitat for Humanity and VISTE for about three years. A retired truck driver, he said he had become inactive following the death of his wife.

One day, as he sat in his living room, he noticed Habitat volunteers beginning work building two houses across the street. He said Borton invited him to join the effort, and Ribblett has been a regular volunteer ever since.

Ribblett, wearing yellow suspenders marked to resemble measuring tapes, explained how volunteers would eventually build frames for interior walls and install insulation and wall panels.

“One of the best parts (of volunteering) is seeing how people react,” Ribblett said. “People actually start to cry when you help them with stuff. It’s so rewarding. I really like working with Habitat and VISTE. They’re both really good programs.”

Habitat for Humanity has arranged to furnish the home with appliances, including a refrigerator and a stove, both donated by Whirlpool, Twomey said. The project has drawn contributions of a large collection of 2-by-4 planks, as well as cash donations from board members.

Persaud, who continues to work on the project as much as he can manage, said he hopes his family might be able to occupy the home by June.

“I'm very grateful and thankful to everyone involved in this,” he said. “This is way more than I expected and, to be honest, than I feel like I deserve.”

He added: “I thought that I was a good and kind person until I met the individuals at Habitat and realized that there is so much more levels to being a nice, good person. And so they've done me a favor by opening my eyes to the fact that there are good people out there, and I myself can do more to be a good person, that I shouldn't just accept that I'm doing enough.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Habitat for Humanity helps renovate mobile home for Lakeland veteran