TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Rebuilding Group, NFL Team Up To Improve West Tampa

Tribune photo by JAY NOLAN

Liduvina Nieves, 66, is overcome with emotion as she's led around her new home Friday by Monsignor Laurence Higgins.

ADVERTISEMENT

By JOSÉ PATIÑO GIRONA | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 30, 2009

WEST TAMPA - Liduvina "Lucy" Nieves sat on a new sofa in her new house this morning, overwhelmed and nearly speechless.

"The change is incredible," said Nieves, 66, who has lived on Union Street for 30 years.

Nieves' home was one of 20 in her neighborhood rehabilitated and completed today as part of Kickoff to Rebuild, a project sponsored by the nonprofit Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay and the National Football League.

Monsignor Laurence Higgins blessed Nieves' house as she took a tour and prepared to move in.

More than 30 businesses, local and national, sponsored homes and provided volunteers to repair them as part of the project. More than 1,000 people volunteered to rehabilitate the homes, said Olga Gonzalez, Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay project manager and spokeswoman.

First Florida and The Richman Group of Florida sponsored Nieves' home. Representatives of the companies found Nieves' home in bad shape and decided to tear it down. On the site where she has lived for three decades, the volunteers spent 27 days building a new house with three bedrooms, one bathroom and 1,300 square feet of living space.

Work at the other homes consisted of a kitchen makeover, interior and exterior painting, landscaping, caulking and installing new washers, dryers and stoves.

"It is a day of renewal for West Tampa, a neighborhood that deserves it," Gonzalez said. "This is a neighborhood to a large extent that has felt forgotten."

Rebuilding Together is a national nonprofit agency that helps rehabilitate houses for military veterans and people with low incomes or disabilities.

Its Tampa Bay chapter was founded in 2001. The organization has a 14-year relationship with the NFL, through which it rehabilitates homes in Super Bowl cities.

This year, the agency chose homes in a five-block area of the Old West Tampa neighborhood, near Raymond James Stadium, site of Super Bowl XLIII.

George Johnson had his house enhanced with vinyl siding, a hot-water heater, porch screens, awnings, carpet, interior paint and a bathroom makeover. The companies that sponsored his Pine Street home were K. Hovnanian Homes and Centex Homes.

Johnson, 68, said he was moved by the gesture and work of volunteers. He lives with his grandson, David Galloway Jr., 21, in a home he estimates is more than 100 years old. Johnson said he has lived there more than 40 years.

Galloway said he was proud: "It's always something I wanted to do for him but couldn't."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT