43
Volunteers lay groundwork for Joe’s new home
Photo
A HAPPY SITE: Joe Kaluza comes to Ivanhoe Avenue to see the site for his new home. Ground was broken Wednesday for the house, which will be disabled-accessible. Kaluza, the former manager at a KFC restaurant on South Avenue, was shot by a robber in March 2008 while he was leaving the store to make a bank deposit. The shooting left him a quadriplegic. Volunteers are building the house.
Photo
WASTING NO TIME: After the symbolic ground-breaking, the real thing got started immediately on the 2,000-plus-square-foot home.
Video
The handicapped-accessible house should be done in about 60 days.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — Joe Kaluza and his family watched heavy equipment provided through a volunteer effort dig the foundation for their new home.
Work started Wednesday morning on the three-bedroom, handicapped-accessible home on Ivanhoe Avenue.
“It’s overwhelming,” said Kaluza, the former manager of KFC on South Avenue.
He was shot by a robber March 24, 2008, as he left the restaurant to make a bank deposit. The injury left Kaluza a quadriplegic.
Anna Fitzgerald, Kaluza’s sister, and family friend Jim Phillips coordinated a fund-raising campaign to build the family a new house.
Seven area businessmen, calling themselves Core Six, are handling the construction project.
The men, Sam Pitzulo of Sam Pitzulo Homes, John Morvay of American Portfolio, Joe Rienthaler of Rienthaler Auto Village, Don Murphy of Donnell Ford, Tom Parizino of Bernard Daniels Lumber, Jim Rach of C&K Welding and Steve Bott of Mark Thomas Ford, also built a house for Rebecka Bailing and her three children on Shields Road in Canfield two years ago.
The latest effort is expected to take about 60 days to complete and will feature voice-activated lights and television and wider hallways and doorways to accommodate Kaluza’s wheelchair.
“They say we’ll be in by Christmas,” said Lisa Kaluza, Joe’s wife.
The new house, located on the same street where the family lives, means Lisa and her husband will be able to share some time alone together too.
The couple are the parents of two special-needs children, Tiffany, 13, and Josh, 22. Josh now lives at Youngstown Development Center but visits his family every other weekend.
Kaluza said he’s surprised by how quick the money was raised and the speed at which the house will be built but not by the outpouring of generosity.
“Whenever things happen for the wrong reason, people in this community always come together,” he said.
People can still donate by sending to The Kaluza Project, P.O. Box 8, North Lima, OH 44452.
A booth at the Canfield Fair brought in about $37,000 in donations plus promises of in-kind contributions from contractors.
Pitzulo walked by the booth a few times, donating cash, and then offered his services. He gathered his friends from the Shields Road project, and they all decided to pitch in again.
They began calling others, who also donated their skills, Morvay said.
“We’ll have 400 people who volunteer through the project,” he said.
About 140 people have already committed.
“I’m telling you, we’ll have little miracles that happen every day,” Morvay said.
Just as the project encounters a need, someone will show up to provide it, he said, referring to the pattern during the Shields Road project.
When you help someone whose needs are greater than your own, you realize the insignificance of your troubles, Morvay said.
“This is our chance to be philanthropists,” he said.
denise_dick@vindy.com