PEOPLE Magazine finds “Heroes Among Us” at Charleston HBA: Local Contractors Praised for Carol’s Home Project

The “World’s Most Beautiful” issue of PEOPLE magazine, which hit newsstands last week, highlights a group of Charleston, S.C. home builders and contractors for their generous donations to build a new home for a woman left handicapped after a brutal attack. Some of the HBA staff and participating members of Charleston Trident Home Builders Association are featured in the magazine’s “Heroes Among Us” feature, which profiles individuals or groups described by PEOPLE as “ordinary people doing extraordinary things”.

The Charleston Trident Home Builders Association broke ground on the Carol’s Home project on April 25, 2008 and completed the project in January of 2009. During these 9 months, more than 50 Charleston area companies worked free of charge on the project to help give Carol and her family a new start.

It was back in 2002 when Carol was brutally attacked by a stranger as she was locking up a medical building she had just finished cleaning in North Charleston. The man beat her severely with a shovel, stole her purse and car and drove away leaving Carol for dead. Carol barely survived the attack, the brain surgeries and a stroke that followed. The attack left her permanently confined to a wheelchair with limited movement of her arms and partially blind.

The Charleston Trident Home Builders Association followed the story and a few years after the attack was disturbed to learn that Carol was living in a home where she was confined to one room because of her new disabilities and a house that featured small doorways and wall-to-wall carpet. Immediately, the Board of Directors took action and agreed to help the Armstrong family. It took a couple of years to find the perfect lot, design a handicap-friendly house that would give Carol the freedom she craved and to get local companies on board to donate their services. But, when it was time, the community rallied together to build a new house and in turn a new life for the Armstrongs. To read more about the “Carol’s Home” project visit: www.hbacharleston.com. The story should also be available online shortly at: www.people.com.