NEWPORT – Members of the Newport County Board of Realtors and their families broke out the hammers on Saturday to renovate the home of a mentally disabled woman.
Volunteers replaced the furnace, built a new front porch, cleaned up the yard and overhauled the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom at a home on Channing Street. The Realtors board said the homeowner inherited the home and lives with her niece and her niece’s two children.
The project was part of the national Rebuilding Together program that repairs homes of needy residents. The Newport home was the 10th project undertaken by the Newport County Board of Realtors.
“It went very well,” said Susan McCoy, local chair of Rebuilding Together and a RE/MAX Realtor in Newport.
The Newport affiliate started in 2000 when McCoy became president of the Newport County Board of Realtors. Each president is able to pick a project or charity that he or she wants to support. For two years Rebuilding Together Providence oversaw the Newport Realtors’ projects before spinning off the affiliate Rebuilding Together Greater Newport, which covers Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth.
