Honoring Our Heroes and ChemMasters aid Perry Township Air Force veteran
Oct. 15—A group of volunteers from Honoring Our Heroes and ChemMasters, Inc. recently came together to clean up a U.S. Air Force veteran's yard property in Perry Township.
"It's overwhelming," said the veteran. "It's always been a fantastic place to live and to raise my kids here. My parents moved out here after we got older and when I saw where my parents moved to, I had to move out here. Everything was a bit overwhelming and then these guys came."
John Norris and his wife founded Honoring Our Heroes nearly three years ago. Serving Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties, the nonprofit's mission is to recognize and honor veterans, as well as former first responders by providing free home repairs and maintenance services to those who are physically and or financially unable to complete the tasks themselves.
"I'm a retired Army sergeant major and in retirement, I needed something to do," Norris said. "I loved working with veterans and military people, so I decided to go that route. There's tons of veterans out here who are living paycheck to paycheck and trying to live in their own homes for as long as they can. Our objective is to help them stay in their homes."
Since the nonprofit began helping veterans and former first responders of Northeastern Ohio, it has helped more than 40 veterans, including the Perry Township Air Force veteran on the morning of Oct. 15. The veteran has lived in Perry for the last 44 years.
"We're doing a special addition of Operation Fast Rake," Norris said. "Fast Rake was intended to help veterans cleanup leaves from their yards, so we're doing like a fall cleanup here. Some trees and brush are overgrown and enclosing on the structure, so we're going to clear it all out."
Norris predicted for the work to be done on the property would take three hours.
"ChemMasters out of Madison sent us eight volunteers and we've got four of our own people," he said.
Post coronavirus, this fall cleanup is one of the first things ChemMasters' community outreach committee has done, said Caitlin Cole, marketing specialist and committee member.
"The committee dissipated because people were working from home," she said. "It wasn't safe to be going out in public spaces, but now we're back in full swing. We're looking for more opportunities, but we're excited this is where we started."
Since the Honoring Our Heroes started, volunteers have replaced a roof for a Vietnam veteran, installed gutters for several veterans, replaced a defective air conditioning unit, built an entry ramp for a Navy veteran, installed a new furnace and air conditioning system for a Vietnam veteran, installed a ceiling fan, replaced defective lighting, raked yards and helped with landscaping. They've also installed new doors, repaired windows, replaced gutters, repaired interior water damage, cleaned gutters, installed water heaters and repaired roofs.
"We find contractors out there who either do the work for free or at a reduced rate to help the veteran," Norris said. "It takes a lot to negotiate that, but the outcome is great."
"To me and I think to a lot of us employees, we want to be able to do things in our community," Cole echoed. "They've been supportive of us and we want to give back, especially since we have veterans in the ChemMasters family."
For volunteering opportunities with Honoring Our Heroes and other inquiries, call 440-459-0300.
