NJ community comes together to create accessible home for teen with CP

From The Press of Atlantic City:

Seventeen-year-old Joseph Annarumma (pictured), who has cerebral palsy, will soon sleep in his own bedroom without his mother for the first time.

For the past 15 years, Dawn Annarumma (pictured) said, they have shared a non-wheelchair-accessible bedroom in their Stafford Township home. It has been her life and she knows nothing else, she said.

"For him to have his own bedroom after sleeping in a room with me for 15 years, it's such an awesome thing," Dawn Annarumma said.

Members of the community and local groups are coming together to renovate the Annarummas' home and give them what they need as Joey prepares for his 23rd surgery next month.

Dawn Annarumma is a single mother who works two jobs to care for her three children. Her husband died 15 years ago, just months before her youngest son, Salvatore, was born. Joey also has a 17-year-old twin, Christopher, who was born without complications.

"It was either I would find a way to take care of these three kids or I wouldn't. And not taking care of them wasn't an option. I don't talk about my trials and tribulations. I never walked around with my head down feeling bad for our situation," she said.

She added that she and her sons never focused on Joey's disability.

"I think that is why he has the good nature he has," she said.

Although Joey cannot speak, he wrote a few paragraphs in school about how the community coming together to renovate his home made him feel. Joey wrote that it will be easier for him to take a bath and that he is going to have his own room. He called the project "very cool."

The Access for Joey project is being coordinated by the Exchange Club of Beach Haven. The plan is to convert the garage into two handicapped-accessible bedrooms.

The present kitchen will be removed for the installation of a wheelchair-accessible bathroom. The existing dining room will become a large eat-in kitchen. Local contractors will donate their time to complete the job, and the project is expected to cost at about $35,000 in materials. The Annarummas are staying in a friend's home in Ship Bottom while renovations are done.

Southern Regional High School students and staff opened their hearts and wallets this fall. A week of fundraising by high school students and staff brought in more than $11,000 for the project. School organizations, including the Michael Lorenzi Philanthropic Fund, also donated to the cause.

"It's the most amazing thing. I would have never ever imagined it. I guess it started out as just a few people knowing and sympathizing with what my life is and it's just taken off from there. I never imagined something so little could turn into something so big," Dawn Annarumma said.