Volunteers build a house for Vietnam Vietnam homeless veteran sleeping in 2020 car

In January 2024, Steve Layman Read an article in Herald-Times About the attempt of a Bloomington woman to help a 76 -year -old Marine veteran who lived in his car since his house burned.

It caused him to find out more.

He could help him take the man to a house, “as it should be?”

April Wittebort replied after seeing Stewart Eaton’s plea on Facebook for help Deleting debris and weeds from Westside property where his house was once. The county has filed actions against him, which requires cleaning the lot.

Could anyone give a hand, devote an hour, help him?

“I would be extremely grateful,” said his post.

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After throwing his children at school in a morning, Wittebort led to Heatherwood Lane and found Eaton’s Ford Fusion, parked on the alley that once took his home.

He was sleeping at the wheel. She beat the window, waking up. She asked a question: “How can I help you?”

Mike Kelly, withdrawn from the US Air Force, saw Eaton’s Facebook post as a chance to help a veteran colleague. He met with Wittebort and Ryan Mader, another person who wanted to enter. The three raised more than one ton of debris and Kelly raised it.

Before long, he joined the voluntary construction crew, despite the fact that he had no experience.

“I have a truck. I am a pensioner. I have time, “he said last year, while he was preparing to fill the bed of his truck last time with debris from Eaton’s property.

John Duell was at the living room table in his house in Greene County, reading the newspaper when he saw the story about Wittebort’s plan to raise $ 5,000 through Gofungme to buy a fema trailer to make his property.

“This made me laugh enough because I knew this would be an impossibility in Bloomington,” said Duell, who was involved in building almost 200 habitats for humanity. He wants to build a house for a veteran, and here was an opportunity. He could do this.

Then he said, “A bold and powerful voice” issued an order. Duell is a man of faith who believes in the divine direction.

“Even with my poor hearing, he called. “Build the house”.

He contacted Layman, whom he knew from Habitat Builds. It’s not been long before Layman, Dull, Kelly Wittebort and Mader formulated a home construction plan. “Then I met Mike and Ryan and April. Then I agreed that we could do this. “

John Duell holds a copy of Herald-Times with a story about Stewart Eaton's need to help find a place to live. Duell and Mike Kelly, in the background, responded to the call with other volunteers, built Eaton. — John Duell holds a copy of Herald-Times with a story about Stewart Eaton’s need to help find a place to live. Duell and Mike Kelly, in the background, responded to the call with other volunteers, built Eaton.

Eaton’s voluntary work, donations and money make the new house a reality

Eaton has used its economy and social security revenues to provide about $ 100,000 to purchase supplies and cover the cost of non-voluntary labor. Many were donated: architectural plans, plans, cleaning of land, windows, appliances, a wooden hut and a double bed with a thick mattress.

For a long time, Eaton slept on a crib with a metal frame reserved with a roll at Wheeler Mission. Sometimes it slipped on a motel room.

Duell served as a construction crew leader, directing the small group of basic volunteers and others from Habitat for Humanity, who helped large projects, such as establishing the roof agent. “Nothing stopped working for five or six days a week with any volunteers were available,” Kelly said.

Duell, he said, never missed a day.

Kelly said to the end, woke up every morning and said, “Finish what you started, finish what you started.” I never built a house, so I took it one day at some point. “

The house built by foreigners is “really a god”

Veteran Bloomington, Stewart Eaton, lived in his car and stayed overnight at Wheeler Mission or cheap motels, after a fire destroyed his house. This week, he sleeps in his own bed, after a body of foreigners who read about his situation climbed and built a house.

The house of 1,050 square meters has two bedrooms, bathrooms and a half, a laundry, a shielded front porch, a small rear porch and a carport. The veteran administration paid for a long ramp that leads to the front door and brought a full -size flag to an open house on March 1 to fly outside.

A side vision of Stewart Eaton's house. — A side vision of Stewart Eaton’s house.

At the open house, the volunteers talked about what it meant for this various group of foreigners to work together to offer a house for Eaton. Duell and Kelly, big men who made sure that this project happened, became emotional and were hardly able to speak.

After she was homeless and lived in her car for a few years, Stewart Eaton finally has her own bed in her own home.

Both believe that God had a hand in the reunion of the people who built the house. “This house is really a god for Stewart,” Kelly said.

That night, after the volunteers and guests left, Eaton closed the front and back doors and spent the first night sleeping in his bed.

In his new house.

Contact HT reporter Laura Lane to [email protected] or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Times: Strangers build a homeless seam veterinarian living in the car a new house