30 Days for 30 Vets takes on roof renovation for McHenry veteran, volunteer with disabilities

Mark McClaughry knew the roof on his almost 100-year-old McHenry home needed work, but the disabled veteran’s house also needs new windows and a kitchen renovation.

The Marine and Army vet – he served in both branches – said money is tight for any of those repairs, and he worried about saving up enough.

Rhett Wilborn and Courtney Wander wanted to do something for veterans and thought their company, Innovative Home Concepts, could help. For 20 years, they’ve replaced windows, gutters, siding and roofing in the McHenry area.

“We’d seen other roofing companies doing this, replacing roofs” for U.S. military veterans, Wilborn said. He and Wander then met with Dawn Bremer of The Bremer Team – Keller Williams Success Realty in McHenry. They knew Bremer works with nonprofit groups all over McHenry County and might have suggestions about how to do something with their idea.

From that conversation, 30 Days for 30 Vets was born. The program invites residents throughout the area to nominate veterans who need help with their homes, things such as repairing or replacing gutters, hot water heaters, washers and dryers, furnaces, kitchens and roofs. The recipients were announced throughout November.

The Bremer Team and volunteers raised more than $200,000 in materials, cash and in-kind donations to pay for the projects. In October, the group began calling veterans to tell them they’d been picked. Getting the work completed has been spread over several months as crews and donations are lined up.

On Thursday, the team from Innovative Home Concepts, along with Wilborn and Wander, were at McClaughry’s house to solve his roof problem.

Crews started pulling off the old shingles and found four layers – the original wood shake roof covered by three courses of asphalt shingles. The decking was rotted away in some spots, including on the house’s steep front gable.

Wilborn estimated that the roof would cost about $24,000 if the McClaughry family had to fund it themselves.

“It’s steep. There is rotten wood,” and the attic never really was vented correctly, making the roof decking material wave over the years from moisture, heat and expansion, he said.

The house, a mishmash of craftsman style with some Cape Cod thrown in, was his mother and stepfather’s, McClaughry said. They moved in when he was in high school in the 1980s, and he’s raised his four children there, too. McClaughry and his wife purchased the house from his stepfather five years ago, and he’s pretty sure his stepfather did the last shingle layer himself, 30-odd years ago.

Getting on the steep roof isn’t something McClaughry was prepared to do. He’s rated totally and permanently disabled due to injuries he suffered in the military.

McClaughry served in the Marine Corps from 1986 to 1992. He got out and went to school, then enlisted in the Army in 1994. He injured his back while leading a counter-battery radar unit in Kuwait during Operation Desert Shield and left the service in spring 2001.

“Jumping up and down off of a truck, I popped disks in my back,” McClaughry said.

It was his daughter, Alexa, who nominated McClaughry for the roof.

“My father has spent his entire life giving back to others without ever asking for anything in return,” she wrote. “He is often found helping others with household projects, event planning/setup, personal hardships, etc. He has also served as a volunteer coach and mentor in the community since he was 16 years old and attending McHenry East Campus.

“He began volunteering with the park district as a youth soccer coach and has since transitioned into coaching youth baseball and softball for the past 16 years, all without pay. He currently makes competitive, travel softball available and affordable to families who financially cannot keep up with the youth sport business industry.”

Bremer and her team plan to open nominations at the website 30daysfor30vets.com in July for the next round of help to keep veterans’ homes in top shape.

On Saturday, May 24, Wilborn, Wander, Innovative Home Concepts and their other business – Foxhole Pizza and Pub at 3308 W. Elm St. in McHenry – are hosting A Crawl to Remember, Raising a Toast to our Heroes.

The charity pub crawl is set to start at 3 p.m. and invites participants to McHenry’s Riverside Drive pubs and restaurants: Foxhole, Whiskey Diablo, The Courthouse Tavern, Polish Legion of American Veterans Post 188, Rita’s Italian Ice, After the Fox, Old Bridge Tavern and American Legion Post 491. There is a $20 registration fee, and those who complete the crawl will receive a collector’s T-shirt. Registration can be done online at Foxholetogo.com.

The fundraiser will help cover costs for the roof, and remaining proceeds will go to the 30 for 30 program. A 50/50 raffle will benefit Veterans Path to Hope.

In a separate initiative in the coming days to help those who’ve served, Sunrise Exterior Solutions, an Owens Corning Platinum Roofing contractor, is providing a new roof to a different veteran in McHenry as part of the Owens Corning Roof Deployment Project.