To the Editor:

Hillary Clinton wrote that it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a nation of volunteer fundraisers, such as myself, to provide severely-wounded military with the handicap houses they need to live out the rest of their lives as comfortably as possible.

With advancements in modern medicine, men who used to die on the battlefield now make it home alive, but many of them face life-altering injuries. Since 9/11, four men have returned home missing all four limbs, others are completely paralyzed, and a few are blind with no arms so they are totally helpless. It is painful to wear a prosthetic leg for more than a few hours and a home needs wide doorways so a wheelchair can easily fit through them. If you have never seen a film clip of a legless young veteran having to drag himself along the floor to get to his bedroom, the image is painful to watch.

Unknown to many Americans, the United States government only gives each severely-wounded young veteran a one-time-only payment of less than $64,000 for making their homes handicap accessible. $64,000 is hardly enough money to build a handicap ramp and to widen a few doorways. The average price of a handicap house is $430,000. Homes For Our Troops is a national nonprofit that builds deserving veterans who enlisted after 9/11 an entire custom handicap house at no cost to the veteran.

I do not have a child in the military and neither my husband nor myself have served. But I am an American and these are American soldiers who need our help. Homes for Our Troops now has an “Adopt a room” program. For $5,000 the town of Newtown can adopt a room. If you give a yearly donation to charity please consider giving earlier in the year by sending me a check made out to “Homes for Our Troops” to combine with the money raised by the Beautiful Baby Contest in adopting a room in the name of Newtown. All checks are tax-deductible.

It is not too late to enter a child (newborn- four years) in the Beautiful Baby Photo Contest. It’s only a $10 entry fee and 100 percent of the money raised is donated to Homes For Our Troops. Please email babycontest2010@gmail or call 203 270-8017 for information on how to enter. If you see the voting booth, please drop in a few bills for the baby that you think is the cutest or, if you do not want to vote for a child, in the piggybank slit above the photo of the Sgt. Remache, the Marine who’s house this year’s contest is ear-marked for.

The voting booth will be at The Toy Tree; 14 Church Hill Rd, from June 12th until the morning of June 21st. From there it will travel to Stop & Shop, Sand Hill Plaza for another week.

Lois Barber

33 Zoar Road, Sandy Hook                         June 9, 2015