Lockwood, NWFA and Gary Sinise Foundation Dedicate Latest Smart Home for Veteran
Lockwood Flooring, a wood flooring distributor located in Brentwood, in partnership with the National Wood Flooring Association, an international trade association based in Chesterfield, installed hardwood flooring from Sheoga Hardwood Flooring (Middlefield, Ohio) in the Gary Sinise Foundation’s latest smart-home building project for a wounded veteran. The project was completed earlier this month for Army veteran Chris Sanna, who resides in the St. Louis suburb of House Springs, Missouri.
Sanna was attending a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game this past summer with his family to celebrate his mother’s birthday. He and his girlfriend left the game early when two men approached them outside the stadium demanding their property. They complied with the robbers, and when Sanna and his girlfriend turned to run, Sanna was shot twice. Sanna was hit in his liver, lungs, and spine. He is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Just after the holiday break, Lockwood pulled together a group of six different, and sometimes competing, St. Louis-based hardwood flooring contractors to join forces to install the flooring in Sanna’s home. The contractors volunteered their time to install about 1,400 square feet of wood flooring on the main level of Sanna’s ranch-style home, and about 700 square feet of tile in the basement. Hard surface floors are a very important surface for providing the ease of movement for paralyzed individuals.
The local installation companies included All Wood Floor Company, JD’s Flooring, Jerry’s Fine Floors, Just Around the Corner, and JW Hardwood Floors and delivered by Ambassador Floors, also in Chesterfield.
Also participating in the project was an NWFA partner, the National Tile Contractor’s Association. NTCA coordinated tile donations for the home; tile was donated by NTCA member Florida Tile. Just Around the Corner handled the tile installation. NWFA and NTCA member MAPEI Corporation donated the setting material for the tile projects, as well as the grout.
The project was coordinated through the NWFA’s partnership with the Gary Sinise Foundation, and in particular, GSF board director Jim Shubert, Shubert Design Furniture of St. Louis, who rallied businesses around the St. Louis region to retrofit Sanna’s home. GSF has several programs that provide wounded veterans and their families with the resources necessary to overcome their new life challenges. In addition to the flooring coordinated through NWFA and NTCA, Sanna’s home was completely renovated to meet his specific mobility issues including a complete restructure of the home including walls, showers, and new furniture.
“We are honored to participate in this project,” says Brian Wood, General Manager at Lockwood Flooring. “Our veterans and their families make many sacrifices on our behalf and it is important that we recognize them, especially in times of need. It is our privilege to use our knowledge and expertise in flooring to help improve the life of a veteran who was not paralyzed in combat, but rather while doing what each of us does in our own home town—attend a Cardinals game. Our community should do everything possible to come together to make Mr. Sanna’s life as comfortable as possible.”
To learn more about the Gary Sinise Foundation veteran programs, visit https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/programs.
Lockwood Flooring was established by NWFA’s first chairman, Virgil Hendricks. They are committed to making their customers and suppliers more profitable by providing them with highly educated and motivated professionals armed with the best flooring products in the industry. Lockwood Flooring is located at 8233 Brentwood Industrial Drive, St. Louis, MO 63144, and can be contacted at 314.647.6100 (local), or online at www.lockwoodflooring.com.
The NWFA can be contacted at 800.422.4556 (USA & Canada), 636.519.9663 (local and international), or online at www.nwfa.org.
