The Modesto Bee
MODESTO, Calif. — A Modesto business got a special visit of thanks Monday for its role in one of the good works to have sprung from the tragedy of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
John Martorana, a battalion commander with the Fire Department of New York, brought a framed piece of steel from the Twin Towers to owners Jeff Cowan and Bob Kerr of House of Carpets/Carpet One Modesto in appreciation for their support of the Building for America’s Bravest program.
BFAB is a project of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, an organization begun in memory of a fallen 9/11 firefighter. It builds high-tech “smart homes” for catastrophically injured service members.
House of Carpets is part of the Carpet One Floor & Home chain, which with manufacturing partner Mohawk has committed to providing flooring materials and installation for the smart homes.
Energy efficient, automated and easily accessible, the smart homes use adaptive technology to help severely injured heroes live better, more independent lives, according to Building for America’s Bravest.
The first BFAB home was built for a quadruple amputee who lives in the New York City borough of Staten Island, Martorana said. At the dedication of the home, the recipient said, “ ‘This is great, but there’s more guys like me out there,’” Martorana told a small group of Modesto and Stanislaus County officials and firefighters gathered at the McHenry Avenue flooring store Monday morning. “So the Siller Foundation pledged to take care of these guys that come down the pike and to this date pledged to build 200 smart homes. They’ve completed 23 homes and there are 20 more in various stages of completion and several more on the drawing board.”
Cowan said he knows of no BFAB homes in Northern California yet, the closest being in Lancaster, in northern Los Angeles County. He said he hopes the nationwide program leads to construction of a home in his store’s area.
In the meantime, House of Carpets employees will make customers aware of the BFAB program in hopes of getting donations toward building the homes, Cowan said. Because even with the donations by Carpet One and Mohawk and other building-industry supporters, money still needs to be raised, Martorana said.
These aren’t cookie-cutter homes, he said. “They’re all individually designed for the vet and the vet’s family. They pick out a location that’s good for them, it’s not, ‘Here’s a house. Go live in this house and this is it.’ They work with them: ‘Where do you want to live? What do you need? What does the family need?’ They work it out, and they design a custom-made home.”
Customers or anyone else interested can make donations of any amount at House of Carpets, Cowan said. He said he’s experienced personally that everywhere you turn, businesses have campaigns asking customers to make a donation, and sometimes you don’t know what the charity is or what the money will be used for. “That’s what I like about this – you know where it’s going,” Cowan said.
Martorana said donations also can be made at tunnel2towers.org and ourbravest.org. Ninety percent of any donation goes straight to the building of the homes, he said, with the other 10 percent going toward expenses, like having FDNY personnel tour the country to raise awareness.
The battalion commander, who’s been on the job 35 years, said he’s one of 15 or 20 people who’ve taken turns traveling the U.S. in two vans since April. They donate their time, he said, but fuel, lodging and other expenses remain.
At the time of the 2001 attacks, Martorana was captain of the Ladder 118 firehouse, which lost eight people – its entire on-duty crew plus two others – when the Twin Towers fell.
He told Monday morning’s audience about the origin of the Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. Siller, a firefighter, was on his way home from work when he heard on the scanner that the towers were hit, so he turned his vehicle around, picked up his gear at his firehouse and headed toward the city to help.
Because the city was on lockdown, Siller could get only as far as the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. He parked there and made the rest of the way, about three miles, on foot. “When the towers came down, he was lost,” Martorana said.
Siller, a 34-year-old father of five, was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. His siblings raised him when their parents died when Siller was just 10. His brothers and sisters wanted to memorialize him and honor him, and did so by creating a charitable Tunnel to Towers Run that retraces his footsteps.
The first run, in 2002, had 2,500 participants and benefited a Staten Island orphanage, Martorana said. This year’s run had 32,000 participants. As the run has grown, so has the foundation, which has expanded its focus into such areas as relief for tornado and Hurricane Sandy victims to Building for America’s Bravest.
Telling Monday’s crowd about the effort by House of Carpets employees to spread the word among customers, Martorana said, “We feel if they’re aware of it, it might not be that hard of a sell. It’s for a good cause – a great cause.”
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