Disabled veteran, family receive new home after house fire
The sounds of fans blowing, music blaring and people yelling to each other echo through the half-constructed house in Reynoldsburg.
Even though power cords, sawdust and rocks are scattered throughout the house, Cpl. Melroy Cort and his family will move in in less than a week.
Cort, 36, of Columbus, enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and was sent to Iraq for his first deployment in August 2005. In December of that year, he lost both legs in a blast from an improvised explosive device and was sent back to the United States.
Cort and his wife Samantha lived with their 10 children in a house in Pickerington for several years. On Memorial Day 2018, an electrical fire destroyed the house and many of their belongings.
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The family lived in a hotel in the Columbus area for a brief period after losing their home and then moved in with family members in the area. The Corts reached out to the New York-based Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which builds houses for veterans, for help.
The Corts’ new house is the first home project that the Tunnel to Towers Foundation has done with A Soldier’s Journey Home, a Tennessee-based nonprofit group that helps injured veterans.
A Soldier’s Journey Home brought hundreds of volunteers from all around the United States to Reynoldsburg to build the house for the Corts. Most of the volunteers are retired or active firefighters, first responders or veterans.
The home will have special adaptations, including cabinets and a stove that are adjustable; wider doors and hallways; ramps near entrances; and remote lighting that will allow better access for Cort, said John Ponte, senior director of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
“We have over 100-plus people that (are) ... out there shoulder to shoulder, getting stuff done for me,” and risking their lives because of the coronavirus pandemic to come together to build the house, Cort said. “(I have) no words.”
Several local businesses offered discounts or donated items for the construction of the house, said John Capretta, a logistics specialist at A Soldier’s Journey Home who was working on the home.
The house is set to be completed Saturday, 12 days after construction started, and Cort, his wife and their children, ages 4 months to 11 years, will receive the keys in an unveiling ceremony, Ponte said.
“When they come in and we open the door for them, they will never have to leave,” Capretta said. “They get to spend the night. The refrigerator will be full. The pantry will be full.”
rkaras@dispatch.com
@RachelKaras3
