Polk County Recovers helps a Veteran return home after being impacted by Winter Storm Uri in February 2021

 

 

 

This was a long road for Mr. Johnson who soon after his home flooded due to the freeze, he had a car accident which resulted in him being life-flighted to Houston, and then spending most of this past year in rehab.  Thankfully he recovered from his accident, but his home was not livable for some time.  Through the efforts of Polk County Recovers and through funding available from St. Bernard Project (SBP), Mr. Johnson's home was completed in April 2022.  At long last he is back in his home, and on August 5th he was welcomed home by Polk County Recovers Board President, Vernon Ware, County Recovery Liaison, Melissa Gates, and Pct. 2 Commissioner, Ronnie Vincent.  Mr. Johnson's son, Mark Johnson from Minnesota was also present for hid dad's return home.  It was a pleasure working on this project and helping Mr. Johnson return home, but this would not have been possible without the funding from SBP.  Since 2017, SBP's SHARE intervention has granted $6.7 million to dozens of rebuilding partners across five disaster-impacted states, shared 72 AmeriCorps members, and trained 1,073 individuals from 31 organizations on disaster recovery best practices.  The added capacity led to their partners rebuilding more than 800 homes for families than SBP could have done alone.

Welcome Home, Mr. Johnson!