Merrick school gives veterans a home

Chatterton Elementary School in Merrick held an assembly on March 22 to honor their achievement of raising $1,137 toward Homes for our Troops, a nonprofit that builds homes for injured or disabled U.S. veterans.

Waving American flags and donning blue-shirts, students filled the gymnasium of Chatterton Elementary School in Merrick on March 22 to greet Timothy Birckhead. The 34-year-old U.S. Navy veteran was escorted to the front of the room by his mother, Gloria, and his brother. Birckhead served from 2000 through 2007 and left because of the initial onset of a nerve disease with which he would later be diagnosed and would leave him confined to a wheelchair.

“You always hear that one person can’t make a difference,” said Chatterton Elementary School Assistant Principal Scott Jackson, addressing the crowd. “They have to be famous, they have to be important.” He debunked that notion when he recognized Carter Tenenbaum, a Chatterton fourth-grade student who brought Birckhead’s story to his school’s student council. Together, they raised $1,137 to help build Birckhead a handicapped-accessible home with the nonprofit organization Home For Our Troops.

Tenenbaum first saw Birckhead on an episode of ABC’s The View in November 2016, where his mother, Robin Hommel-Tenenbaum, serves as the senior supervising producer. The View co-host Sara Haines joined Tenenbaum and Birckhead at the Chatterton assembly and acknowledged the school’s achievement, which was made possible by selling camouflage dog tags for two dollars each.

Students had the opportunity to ask questions to Birckhead regarding his time serving in the U.S. Navy and the first was why he made the decision to enlist. To this, he responded that he wanted to see the world. Birckhead served overseas as a Second Class Petty Officer on the USS Iwo Jima starting in 2000. In 2006, he grew physically weaker and could not pass the Navy’s Physical Readiness Test. The next year he had to go leave the Navy and, in 2009, was diagnosed with a nerve disease called Hereditary Neuropathy with liability to Pressure Palsies, which causes weakness to the limbs and muscular atrophy.

“You’ve got people that do a job that I could never do,” Haines told the Herald, referring to those who serve in the U.S. military. “They come back, many of them, with injuries and they’re wounded and they can’t own their own life again,” she added and explained how Homes For Our Troops brings them a newfound independence.

This past year, Birckhead and his mother, Gloria, visited the nonprofit organization, which builds handicapped-accessible homes for post-911 veterans living with physical disabilities. Birckhead, who currently lives with his brother in Philadelphia, was promised a house in Mullica Hill, New Jersey to live with his daughter, Tamyja. His new home will include wider halls and doorways, automatic door openers, roll under sinks, stove tops and counters, pull down shelving, generators and safe rooms.

According to its website, Homes Four Our Troops has built 225 handicapped-accessible homes across the nation as of November 2016 and there are currently 70 veterans on its active project list. Seventy percent of its operational budget is generated by fundraisers and donations similar to that of Chatterton. It receives aid from projects as small as lemonade stands to grand-scale events like golf tournaments. For more information, visit www.hfotusa.org.