Helpers appeal for aid in Milo

MILO – Joey English wants to finish what he started.

The 23-year-old construction worker and three fellow Messianic Jews made a public appeal Wednesday for more building supplies that would help them build the Deer Run Drive home of Gary Metilly, which was destroyed in a fire in March, before they returned home to Georgia late Friday.

“We don’t have the money or the supplies to get the ceiling done,” English said Wednesday during a break in the construction work. “If we had the stuff, we could really get a lot more finished. Friday is our last day, and we are starting to run out of work because of the lack of materials.”

The construction crew members drove themselves about 1,300 miles from Georgia late last week to volunteer to help build a new house for the Metillys, a family of 13.

The crew needs roof trusses, roof decking, drywall, insulation, nails and other supplies. Anyone interested in donating such things or other building materials or money for them can call Gary Metilly at 943-3402 or deliver them to 33 Deer Run Drive.

The new home the family is building will be about 2,000 square feet per level, said Metilly, an aspiring electrician.

The volunteer construction workers have finished the first-floor exterior walls, flooring and started on the second floor of their new house, an impressive performance for a handful of days, Gary Metilly said.

The March 14 fire took all of their belongings and they had no insurance. Nancy Metilly is pregnant and due within a few weeks, Gary Metilly said. Their children are Isaiah, 19, Elizabeth, 17, Jonathan, 16, Andrew, 13, Josiah, 12, Hannah, 10, Hadassah, 7, Miriam, 5, Ribqah, 3, Shamyah, 2, and 10-month-old Ezekiel.

The donations include a $1,300 Wal-Mart gift certificate, a Three Rivers Kiwanis Club gift of $1,000, and so much in clothes and other goods that town officials who were volunteering to help the family store the stuff eventually stopped accepting donations.

Metilly said he is grateful for the volunteer efforts of the Georgia crew and his neighbors as well as the donations he has received from the community.

“People have been wonderful,” he said. “We can’t thank them enough.”