Cypress Creek Lakes, Perry Homes partner for Helping a Hero program

Cypress Creek Lakes and Perry Homes recently broke ground on a home for a local wounded veteran.

According to a press release, Marine Marty Gonzalez, a graduate of The Woodlands High School and a former employee of Woodforest National Bank, was deployed to Iraq in 2004, where he received three Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars.

During battle, an enemy grenade hit Gonzalez while he was pulling a trapped Marine out of a courtyard. He was hit in the face with the grenade and shot by an insurgent through the right humerus bone twice. As a result of more than nine surgeries, Gonzalez has two metal plates and screws holding his arm together, a broken back and a brain injury. He also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Gonzalez has a wife, Tawnee, and three children. The Helping a Hero program will provide a home for the family by uniting home builder Perry Homes with Cypress Creek Lakes, the company providing a site for the structure.

According to the press release, the goal in providing homes is to build spaces fully adapted to the veterans' injuries, enabling them to transition successfully into the community. The homes are built in planned communities where the veterans receive support from neighbors, the homeowners' association and the local Rotary Club.

Helping a Hero has built 60 homes in 15 states for paraplegics, quadriplegics, amputees, burn victims and severe traumatic brain injury victims.

For more information, visit www.helpingahero.org.