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Fairgoers boost Kaluza home fund
Canfield Fair
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By Elise Franco
Local contractors have donated about $100,000 in services to help build Joe Kaluza a new home.
CANFIELD — Joe Kaluza said he hoped, but never expected, that those who passed by his tent would be so generous.
Kaluza’s sister, Anna Fitzgerald, and others close to the 43-year-old have set up camp behind the Administration Building at the 163rd Canfield Fair to raise money to build Kaluza a new home.
Fitzgerald said they need to raise at least $250,000 to afford the new house that would be equipped with everything Kaluza needs to live and move more freely in his wheelchair. She said after three days at the Canfield Fair they’ve raised about $16,000.
“People have been very generous. It’s been great,” she said. “The community has been very positive. They always come together and have been very supportive of Joe.”
Fitzgerald said one woman walked up to the booth and wrote a check for $1,000.
“That’s the largest donation we’ve had from the community,” she said.
Kaluza, who has been at the tent every day except one, described the support from his community as “phenomenal.”
“I’m surprised because of how the economy is,” he said. “But then I’m not surprised because when things happen for no reason, the community always pulls together. In these hard times, I am very grateful.”
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.
He said he’ll be relieved when he can finally live in his new home. His wheelchair can maneuver through only two rooms in his current home on Ivanhoe Avenue in Youngstown.
“It’s like confinement,” Kaluza said.
The new home will be equipped with handicap-accessible doors, an open floor plan and a lift-and-transfer system to help move him from his chair to his bed, Fitzgerald said.
In addition to the $16,000 raised so far, Fitzgerald said The Baird Brothers contractors offered its services to the family for free. She said this began a wave of contractors offering to do the same. So far, electric, window, steel and crane, paint, shingles, gutters, plumbing, landscaping and general contracting have been donated to the family by various contractors.
“This has knocked off roughly $100,000 in the cost of the house,” she said. Even with everyone’s generosity, Fitzgerald said they will still need about $100,000 once the fair is over and will continue to run fundraisers to meet the goal.
Kaluza said he doesn’t know how to thank everyone who has supported him since the shooting.
“There’s only thank you,” he said. “But that’s not enough. There are no words to describe how I feel.”
efranco@vindy.com