FORT MYERS, Fla. — A Fort Myers woman, who had been living in her Hurricane Milton damaged home for more than year, got an incredible surprise from her community on Friday.
Watch Fort Myers Community Correspondent Miyoshi Price's report:
I was with 77-year-old Valentina Pereira when Lennar Homes and Lee Builders Care revealed her completely renovated home.
Pereira was emotional when the big reveal happened. Her neighbors, friends and family stood in the street and welcomed her back to a home she thought would never be fixed.
"Oh my gosh this is beautiful. It's perfect," Pereira said.
A tornado that spun off from Hurricane Milton severely damaged her home, and she couldn't afford to fix the damage, so she lived with it for more than a year.
Lee Builders Care agreed to help her out, and she thought they were just going to fix her roof and garage door.
"These individuals that got together, that put everything together, I couldn't ask for any better," Pereira said.
Ray Kershaw from Lennar Homes says it took a village. Several companies helped to renovate Pereira's entire home within three weeks through the Holiday Homes program, a partnership between Lennar Homes and Lee Builders Care.
Both Kershaw and the Lee Builders Care executive director say Pereira had tarps still on the roof a year after Milton and her hot water heater didn't work.
"So she was taking cold showers," the executive director said.
Not anymore. Pereira walked through her home and found all remodeled bathrooms, a guest room for her grandchildren, a sewing room and even a cat house called Casa de Gatos.
There were a lot of tears, not only because of her new house but because her granddaughter from her late son was there to surprise her on her big day.
"I was like I tried to call her at first this morning and then I said to myself she's busy," the granddaughter said.
They were busy hanging at grandma's new house.
"I went to bed last night thinking how am I going to come up with this, fix all this, but God knows it's all done thanks to you," Pereira said.
Lee Builders Care relies on partnerships with local contractors to make these life-changing renovations possible at no cost to homeowners.
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