Volunteers step in when residents can no longer manage home repairs

The residents of a split-level in North Springfield have significant health issues and are no longer able to take care of their home. So, volunteers with the Annandale Christian Community for Action (ACCA) stepped up on April 25 to make needed repairs.

ACCA is a coalition of local churches that collaborate on community service projects. Every spring, they partner with Rebuilding Together to spend a day fixing up two homes for people with disabilities or otherwise unable to do the work themselves. The homeowners are referred by social workers.

Members of the St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church and Annandale United Methodist Church worked on the house in Springfield, while volunteers from Ravenswood Baptist Church, John Calvin Presbyterian Church, and Providence Presbyterian Church carried out repairs on a house in Fairfax on the same day.

 ACCA has repaired 136 houses since 1990, reports Camille Mittelholtz of ACCA.

A longtime married couple (who asked to be identified with their initials) has lived in N’s childhood home in Springfield for decades. Now that N has rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s disease, he has lost all interest in doing anything, says his wife, R, who had to quit the job she’s had at Giant for nearly 40 years to become his full-time caretaker.  

R says her husband used to compete in bowling tournaments and now all he wants to do is sit in front of the TV.

N had been working for a tile distributor since he graduated from high school, but the company abruptly fired him in 2022, saying “we’re running a business, not a charity,” R says. “They didn’t do anything for him.”

“We had a lot of plans for our retirement,” she says, but now, “I feel like a prisoner in our home. I haven’t had one day off since he lost his job.”

R has serious health issues herself, which are impacting her mobility. “Everything is overwhelming,” she says. “The one thing that keeps me together is gardening.”

The ACCA volunteers installed a new gate for her vegetable garden, which she is starting to plant, despite her physical limitations.

The volunteers also added fencing to the deck, painted the railing and fixed the floor on the front porch, did some yardwork, washed the walls in the bedroom, installed grab bars, repaired a crack in the ceiling, installed a new LED light fixture, cleaned a ceiling fan, and did some interior painting.

R is grateful for the work done by the volunteers, but wishes they didn’t need to rely on help from strangers.

“I always used to be so independent,” she says. “This is so hard.”

Related story: The ACCA Child Development Center offers high-quality learning