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Veterans' families get comforts of home
By JULIANNE WU, Times Staff Writer SEMINOLE -- Everything smells new at the Fisher House, from the carpeting to the woodwork to the linens on the beds. And it suited Joe and Kim Grant just fine on their recent stay there. "It's like a dream house," Mrs. Grant said. On Monday, the Grants and their daughters Judith, 14, and Nicole, 8, became the first family to stay overnight at the house, built for and donated to the VA Medical Center at Bay Pines by the Fisher House Foundation of Rockville, Md. The house will be dedicated formally at 10:30 a.m. Monday. "If it weren't for the Fisher House, we would have had to drive in really early this morning," Mrs. Grant said Tuesday. Instead, the Grants drove the 150 miles from Naples and stayed overnight, so Joe Grant could have tests early the next morning. They returned home Tuesday so they could work their joint paper route for the Naples Daily News. The couple and their daughter Judith will make another trip here today so Joe Grant, 43, a former Marine, can have his left knee replaced. He will remain in the hospital for a month to six weeks, but his family will stay at the Fisher House until July 3. "When Joe had his knee surgery eight years ago, we had to stay in a motel. It was pretty expensive," Mrs. Grant said. "The people here have been so super," said Joe, who injured his knee in 1980. On full Social Security disability, Grant figures he has had at least 12 knee surgeries. "It's a home away from home," said Judith Grant, an eighth-grader in Naples. This is the 30th Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher House to be built since the Fishers set up the nonprofit foundation in 1990, and the sixth such facility at a VA medical center. Similar to Ronald McDonald Houses, which offer lodging to families of hospitalized children, Fisher Houses cater to families of patients in military hospitals and veterans' centers. The 5,600-square-foot Fisher House at Bay Pines sits on 14 acres just north of Lake Timucuan, a small lake fed by two artesian wells and used to irrigate parts of the 337-acre VA complex. The house is about 100 yards from the hospital. In style, the house -- with a Spanish-tile roof -- reflects many of the buildings on the Bay Pines campus. The first floor contains a large living room, a dining room that can accommodate 16 people, and a kitchen with an adjoining pantry and laundry room. There are two handicapped-accessible suites with private baths and small living rooms and an office for the manager and volunteer staff. In front of the staircase sits a bronze bust of the Fishers dressed in aviator jackets. Although a leg injury prevented Zachary Fisher from serving in the military during World War II, he was dedicated to the Armed Forces. The real estate developer and philanthropist, who died in June 1999 atage88, was named an "honorary veteran in the U.S. Armed Forces" by President Bill Clinton in December 1999. For now, people staying at the Fisher House won't be charged, said Laurence Christman, a Bay Pines spokesman. More than $12,000 for maintenance of the house has been donated or pledged by various veterans' organizations. "Families will have to cook for themselves, make their own beds and straighten up their own rooms," said Fisher House manager Dawn Johnson. The linens will be washed by the VA laundry services. Christman said families of veterans who want to stay there should go through Dawn Johnson or be referred by a social worker or physician. For questions about Fisher House, Johnson can be reached at (727) 319-1350. Those considered would include: people who can drive but live more than 50 miles away; people with an infirmity who can't drive or get a ride, no matter how far they live from Bay Pines, and finally, "for humanitarian reasons," Christman said. Bay Pines serves veterans along the west coast of Florida from Pinellas County south to Naples. The Fisher House at Bay Pines cost about $900,600, Christman said. In addition to maintaining Fisher House, the VA provides a full-time manager and full-time housekeeper, along with a number of volunteers. -- Information from Times files used in this report. If you goThe Fisher House, located on the grounds of the VA Medical Center at Bay Pines, will be dedicated at 10:30 a.m. Monday. Guests will include U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi; Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Arnold Fisher, chairman and CEO of the Fisher House Foundation. More than 400 people have been invited.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks Dr. Delay Letters |
