LEE – It has been a heartbreaking year of firsts for Dee House.

It was her first Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, Fourth of July, and much more, without her son Joel, a 22-year-old U.S. Army sergeant killed June 23, 2007, by a bomb in Taji, Iraq. Yet House has found a form of consolation and a renewed purpose in honoring her son and his service to his country, she said Tuesday.

She and other family members created a scholarship in his name that allows children to attend summer camp, and on Sunday will attend a 55-mile run from Ogunquit to as far north as Portland dedicated to the 55 Maine service personnel who gave their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The run is being held in conjunction with a nationwide run, Run for the Fallen, from Fort Irwin, Calif., to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia that began June 14. It dedicates 1 mile for every soldier, sailor, airman and marine killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“It really takes the focus off my grief,” House said Tuesday of her charity efforts. “We choose to go on living and we choose to make the world a better or worse or indifferent place. Realizing that is what helps me do this.

“And when you go to these things, you are with people who understand how you feel,” she added. “You understand how they feel. For example, when we went to the Fort Hood Memorial Dedication in May there were nearly 500 families from just that one base who were in our same situation. That helped.”

The national run placed a marker for Joel in Roanoke, Va., last week, House said.

Not a runner, House doubts she will participate in the Ogunquit run, which is being organized by resident Paul Mixon, but her son Luke might, she said. The event begins at Ogunquit Center at 8 a.m. Hundreds might attend, and the purpose of the event, Mixon said, is absolutely apolitical.

“They [service personnel] gave their lives for our country. Whether you are in favor of the war or against it, we need to honor that,” Mixon said Tuesday. “This is about the warriors, not the war.”

Mixon said he hopes that his event will be as successful as the Sgt. Joel A. House Summer Camp & Exchange Program Scholarship Fund was. That event raised more than $5,000 and sent 33 area children to academic, sports, art, youth, conservation or Bible camps. House hopes to get more scholarship funds next year.

“We provided 25 to 100 percent scholarships,” House said. “Several kids got 75 percent. We didn’t do a lot of 25 percent, and we didn’t do a lot of 100s either. We did the best we could with what we had.”

She was grateful for the scholarship support, and other help, she and her family received, House said.

“Knowing that people care about my son and our family helps us a lot,” she said.

Anyone interested in donating may send checks to the Joel House Summer Camp & Exchange Student Program, c/o Debbie Jacobs, Lee Academy, PO Box 4, Lee 04455.

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