TOLEDO, Ohio — The Homes for Heroes ceremony started Wednesday with a procession of Toledo Fire & Rescue Department officers welcoming a veteran and his family to a house they will now call home.
Army veteran Pfc. Jesse Woods was awarded the home after surviving injuries sustained in combat, including a traumatic brain injury.
But that's not the end of his survival story.
"He had stage four cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and started to get really intense chemotherapy on Christmas Eve right after my little guy's first birthday," Woods' wife, Meghan Woods, said. "And it was a heck of a year. We didn't know if he was going to make it through, but he's thankfully in remission right now."
And while Woods was fighting cancer, one of his daughters was diagnosed with type one diabetes.
"A lot of unfortunates happened to our family, and we contacted Building Homes [for Heroes] to get some guidance, to find out if there was anything that they could help us with," Woods said. "And they did."
Building Homes for Heroes Project Manager Rusty Smallwood said that to see a veteran like Woods survive and continue to provide for his family is why he does what he does.
"That family or veteran that's given so much to us and suffered a lot because of it in the recent war to give us our freedoms, this gives this family that that comfortable life to come home to," Smallwood said.
The Woods family wants other veterans to keep searching for assistance like they did.
"We never thought that we would be a candidate for getting home from Building Homes for Heroes. My husband has two arms and two legs, so we didn't think that we would be the ideal candidate," Meghan Woods said. "But they are an amazing organization and they take into account the invisible wounds of war."
The family is now ready to settle in and Woods says he's ready to experience the priceless moments and watch his kids grow up.