Funding to build wounded vet's house hits snafu

A new home in Winter Park intended for a wounded veteran may be on hold until a group of local entities can gather the funding and materials for construction. And time is soon running out.

The Hannibal Square Community Land Trust Inc. and partner Palm Harbor Homes are in a scramble to fulfill their promise of a new house for Sgt. First Class Bacary Sambou – a veteran wounded during the War in Afghanistan.

Palm Harbor Homes, Fairways for Warriors and the land trust joined forces to give Sambou a new home last year, breaking ground on the property of the new home in November – a lot located at 663 Symonds Ave. donated by the city of Winter Park. Palm Harbor Homes was hoping to finish construction by this month, but a miscommunication of who would be carrying the bill for materials and the final purchase has halted the project, said Denise Weathers, executive director of the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust Inc.

Palm Harbor Homes will be donating the construction labor and some materials, but Weathers said they’re still looking for a donation of $50,000, foundation blocks and general contracting work to help start and finish the home.

Parties interested in making a donation can contact the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust at 407-643-9111 or [email protected]

Services needed include landscaping, plumbing and electrical wiring, she added.

“It’s slow moving right now, but we’re hopeful to get things underway within the next couple weeks,” Weathers said.

“We’re trying to leverage relationships with general contractors to donate materials and their time to help defray some of the costs…. We’re backtracking now and trying to make up for what we thought was actually going to be a free house.”

The organizations found Sambou through an official from Fairways for Warriors, realizing he would make the perfect candidate for a new house.

Fairways for Warriors later held a golf tournament to help pay for the site work of the home.

Sgt. First Class Sambou has been bound to an electric wheelchair since March 17, 2012, when an improvised explosive was detonated near his MRAP vehicle during a supply mission in Afghanistan. He suffered a spinal cord injury, a broken leg, two broken ribs, a broken hand and a vertical cut across the right side of his face that split his eye.

Today he still deals with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, currently receiving treatment at the NeuroRestorative Center in Avalon Park.

But time is short for Palm Harbor Homes and the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust to come through on a new home for Sambou. Weathers said she’d been told by the NeuroRestorative Center that Sambou will be discharged from the Army within 60 to 90 days, forcing him to leave the facility without a place to go.

“We have to really escalate and move faster now because Bacary will be discharged from the rehab facility within 60 to 90 days,” Weathers said. “We’re not concerned … we know that Palm Harbor Homes can build this house in a very timely fashion.”

Sambou told the Observer last November that he felt overwhelmingly grateful for the donated house.

“This made me feel special; I didn’t expect to have this,” Sambou said. “…I know the U.S. Army is the best army in the world, and I wanted to be one of the best, that’s why I joined.”

“Right now, I feel like I’m one of the best.”

Weathers said the land trust and Palm Harbor Homes plan to do whatever it takes to finish the home for the sake of Sambou.

“Bacary is our primary and only focus in getting this done,” Weathers said. “We’re going to honor our commitment to him and keep moving forward.”