Wayne Carrington
The Heckman family sits for the first time together on the front enteranceway of their new restored home.
Home makeover, Sandy edition, came to Long Island yesterday.
Steven Heckman, a 6-year-old being treated for leukemia, returned from Disney World with his family to a home salvaged from the ravages of the late October superstorm.
“Wow — that’s nice!” Steven said when he saw his bedroom, redone with a mural of his favorite character, Indiana Jones.
His mom, 29-year-old Danielle Heckman, cried as she stepped out of a white stretch limousine and got her first look at their renovated house in Amityville.
Wayne Carrington
The Heckman family's restored home in Amityville.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house this beautiful before,” she said.
The ranch-style home took on up to five feet of water that ruined clothes and toys, wrecked the floors and wiring, and destroyed the plumbing.
Volunteers from the local chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry repaired the $150,000 worth of damage and added on a new bedroom for the family’s two girls, Alexa, 9, and Juliana, 3.
“I’m still in shock,” Steven’s dad, also named Steven, said. “All of the words that can describe, ‘This is great,’ is all I can say. This is unbelievable.”
The Heckmans were struggling to keep their heads above water even before the storm hit.
Danielle Heckman had to quit her job to care for him her son, and Steven Heckman is unemployed. They were focused on getting chemotherapy for their son, who needs two years of treatment.
The family had moved into the house, which was once a summer place for Steven’s paternal grandmother, three years before the storm hit. The home was not insured.
The Heckmans thought $8,000 they’d raised for repairs would be enough. But then they discovered that fixing the heating system alone would cost $6,000.
“We were at our wit’s end,” Danielle Heckman said.
The remodeling association’s volunteers – 50 of whom began work the first week of December – worked on eight to 10 houses in the area last year.
“This house had a child in need,” said Art Donnelly, president-elect of the group’s New York City/Long Island chapter.
He learned of the family’s plight through the world’s largest bone marrow donor center, DKMS, or DeleteBloodCancer.org, which is looking for a match for Steven.
“It was one of the many horror stories after Sandy, but different because Steven has such a severe form of cancer,” said Jack Kirkland, a donor recruitment coordinator with the group.
“They needed help to build this house to safeguard their son.”
The volunteers delivered a bigger living room with a 42-inch flat-screen TV over an electric fireplace. They also built a new eat-in kitchen with a marble counter top and a Sub-Zero refrigerator, repaired the patio, and replanted grass.
A surprise extra was new furniture throughout the house.
“The family had no clue,” Kirkland said.
The family had visited Disney World courtesy of the Make a Wish Foundation of Suffolk County. While there, Steven was invited to begin the theme park’s Indiana Jones show with “Lights, camera, action!”
Back home, the family is still in shock by the generosity shown them.
“I’ll never know how to repay them,” Danielle Heckman said.
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