Project to build Joe Kaluza new home to seek donations at Canfield Fair

YOUNGSTOWN — Family and friends of Joe Kaluza know they can never give him back what he lost 17 months ago, but they’re doing what they can to give him everything he needs now.

Kaluza, former manager of KFC on South Avenue in Youngstown, was shot March 24, 2008, while delivering a deposit to a bank at the end of a shift. He is paralyzed from the neck down as a result.

Kaluza’s sister, Anna Fitzgerald, along with others close to the 43-year-old, has since joined to form The Kaluza Project, a tax-exempt charitable organization, to

raise money to build Kaluza a new home.

“The goal is obviously to build this house that is 100 percent handicap accessible,” she said. “We need to raise about $250,000.”

Fitzgerald said Kaluza’s current Ivanhoe Avenue home is too cramped and isn’t handicap accessible enough for his wheelchair.

To get word out about their cause, members of The Kaluza Project are setting up a tent at next week’s Canfield Fair and asking for donations. Fitzgerald said the tent will be set up behind the administration building and will allow passers-by to make donations and learn about what will go into the new house.

“We’ll have pledge cards and envelopes so people don’t have to bring the money to the fair, and we’re going to have buckets for people to drop money into,” she said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.