Shasta’s home nearly done

Shasta Groene will have a home next week with her own petal-pink bedroom and a Caribbean-themed playroom.

After months of fundraising and work, the Coeur d’Alene house built entirely with community donations for Shasta and her father, Steve Groene, is complete.

Crews were installing pavers for a backyard patio, an irrigation system and a security fence Thursday as Superintendent Kathy Jacobsen and Midge Smock, who led the effort, addressed the finishing touches inside the home.

“I have been so overwhelmed with the generosity of this community,” Jacobsen said. “Spokane, too. Everyone has been amazing.”

Shasta and Steve Groene could move into the home as early as Thursday if everything goes as planned.

“It’s great. It’s a very nice house,” Steve Groene said in a telephone interview, noting that the contractors who donated their time to the project were “top-notch.”

The quality shows, he said.

Groene said he’s eager to move in and that 10-year-old Shasta’s excited, too.

The second anniversaries of the murders of his sons, Dylan and Slade, and Shasta’s mother and mother’s fiancé have been hard on the family, Groene said.

Joseph Duncan has been convicted of killing 13-year-old Slade Groene, Brenda Matthews Groene and Mark McKenzie. He’s charged in federal court with kidnapping Shasta and Dylan from the family home and later killing Dylan. The trial is set for January 2008.

If Dylan had lived, July 16 would have been his 11th birthday.

“It’s pretty hard,” Groene said, but added that he and Shasta were doing well.

Smock, of the Windermere Foundation, launched the effort to build Shasta a home after learning last year that the family was homeless. Proceeds from numerous benefits and fundraisers and donations from across the country helped pay for the lot the house was built on.

Everything else – except for a bit of cement used in construction – was donated, Smock said. At least six heating and air-conditioning contractors offered their services and, in most cases, there were backups if a donation fell through.

But Smock said that didn’t prove to be an issue.

Todd Stam, owner of Aspen Homes, volunteered early on to manage the construction project.

He and his wife called everyone they had worked with in the past and Smock and Jacobsen contacted others they knew in the community.

“I just call people and ask and they say yes,” said Jacobsen, who was busy on her cell phone Thursday trying to make arrangements for furniture. Most has been donated already, but Smock said there’s still a need for mattresses.

The house is equipped with a top-of-the-line security system.

Smock said the support shown for Shasta has been phenomenal.

“I could tell you more than 100 stories,” Smock said. “About the neat letters I’ve gotten from people, people that have just given when it hurts.”

A woman from Vancouver regular sends “funny, odd amounts,” Smock said. One couple sent $1,000 to help with living expenses. Smock used it to prepay the utility bill.

Steve Groene has throat cancer and receives disability payments, Smock said. Some money has been raised to cover part of the property taxes, but Smock wants to raise additional funds to pay for insurance and other expenses.

The home is being held in trust for Shasta until her 25th birthday.