Southern Illinois veteran receives new roof, free of cost

BELLE RIVE, Ill. (KBSI) – No more collecting water in buckets for a U.S. Air force veteran in Southern Illinois. Thanks to the Owens Corning Roof Deployment project the man has a whole new roof.

The sound of new shingles being put on a home — music to the ears of Vietnam veteran Marc Tibbetts finally having his leaking roof replaced, and at no cost to him.

“This is Christmas and New Year’s and Thanksgiving and Easter and all that rolled into one for me,” he said.

The national Owens Corning roof deployment project works with contractors to provide new roofs for veterans in desperate need, who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

Owens Corning provides the supplies and – in Southern Illinois – Alpha and Omega Construction provides the labor. General Manager Cory Norville said he is also a veteran.

“I myself am a veteran,” he said. “So I hit home with these people and they gave freely to our country to protect our freedom. This is us trying to give back.”

Work on the roof began early Wednesday morning. Tibbetts said, thanks to this project, he no longer has to worry about the possibility of his roof caving in or having a guest over and water from the ceiling dripping onto their head.

Norville said when they started work on the roof Wednesday morning there was more damage than they expected. While the crew waited for more plywood to be brought in, they took care of some things Tibbetts was in need of.

“There was a few other things that he needed done and he wasn’t able to get done,” Norville said. “We cleaned out his gutter guards, readjusted his gutter, fixed the shingle on a back shed, and he had some water coming off of his front porch that we took care of — all while waiting on the plywood.”

Alpha and Omega owner Justin Matthews said their goal is to replace four free roofs for veterans a year, but the challenge is finding veterans in need.

“Owens Corning actually has never said no to us whenever we had a veteran fill out an application,” he said.

“A lot of veterans won’t reach out and they don’t know to reach out,” Tibbetts said. “And even if they did, some of them just would prefer to be left alone.”

Matthews says anyone can nominate a veteran by contacting Owens Corning anywhere in the United States.

Tibbetts said he hopes sharing this story will spread information about this project to other veterans who could benefit from a new roof.