Kindness returned with rebuilt home

Tue., May 9, 2006

Bethany Monroe Staff writer

Kathy Popoff sat in her kitchen amidst a maze of living room furnishings, astonished by the kindness of the 42 volunteers who were busily painting and completing other projects on her East Carlisle Avenue home.

“We’ve never met one of them before,” she said.

On April 29 volunteers nationwide participated in Rebuilding Together, an annual project designed to help elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners with home maintenance and repairs. The Spokane chapter of Rebuilding Together worked on seven homes across the community, including the Popoffs’.

Kathy and her husband, Andy, have both suffered from health problems. Last November, Andy’s right leg was amputated after a mysterious scratch caused his leg to erode.

“Nobody knew what kind of a sickness it was,” Andy said.

Andy, who will turn 83 this month, has been outfitted with a prosthetic leg and is determined to learn to walk on his own again.

Until just a couple years ago, he and Kathy managed a manufactured home park. Andy was always ready to help the elderly residents with maintenance, Kathy said.

“It seems like we’ve done for people all our lives and it seems like this is return now,” Kathy said.

Local businesses sponsored each home. St. Luke’s Rehab Institute, where Andy received care after his amputation, partnered with Wells Fargo to sponsor the Popoffs’ home project. Various other businesses, organizations and individuals contributed materials, food and their own sweat to make the event happen.

“It was really a community effort,” said Dr. Stefan Humphries, the medical director at St. Luke’s Rehab Institute and former NFL offensive guard. “The house needed renovation and needed a makeover to improve (the Popoffs’) quality of life, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Katie Herche, a senior at Gonzaga University, also helped with the Popoffs’ home.

“You really get to see how much you affect someone,” Herche said. “You get to meet them and know them and understand how you affect their life and help them be independent.”

Rebuilding Together volunteers spent the day painting, installing gutters and a back porch railing, planting flowers and staining the wheelchair ramp that relatives built for the Popoffs last year.

“That is something that I will remember for the rest of my life,” Andy said.

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