Owasso's Home Depot helps a Sperry man with a new porch

We don't always get to tell you stories of big companies helping out the little guy. But we've got a good one for you today. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Rick Wells was in Sperry, at Phillip

Wednesday, August 11th 2004, 10:30 am

By: News On 6

We don't always get to tell you stories of big companies helping out the little guy. But we've got a good one for you today.

News on 6 reporter Rick Wells was in Sperry, at Phillip Wade's house.

Phillip has a brand new porch thanks to three guys from the Home Depot store in Owasso. Their slogan is "You can do it, we can help." Wednesday, it might read "We can do it if you need help."

Phillip Wade, his family calls him Uncle Pete, and he's getting' a new porch. "I sit out here every chance I get." Uncle Pete's mentally disabled and about to celebrate his 62nd birthday and this is kind of a birthday present. "I've needed one for years." The porch was kind of his favorite place but the old one had gone bad and it wasn't safe to use.

His niece, Connie Wade, who lives next door called every social service and government agency she could think of to try to get some help. "So I called Channel 6, actually to find some community projects and they told me to call Home Depot."

She did, and Joe Niemeyer [pictured] from the Owasso store came out looked at the porch. Got his store manager's approval and the rest is history. "This is fun. I love to build things and its fun to do something nice for someone and then watch their reaction when theyâ€™re done, that's the best pay you'll ever get."

Uncle Pete has lived in the Sperry home for as long as anyone can remember. Family members re-carpeted, re-painted and re-wired the inside so he could continue to live where he wanted, but they ran out of money before they ran out of projects. Home Depot is saving the day. Store managers can approve projects like this if they feel they can help. So Uncle Pete is getting a new porch.

Joe Niemeyer: "It's nice to be able to go home at the end of the day and say, that was a good day." They're working on getting him a glider so he can sit out on the porch in style. They've got to get the old porch hauled off, and there's some plumbing work they'd like to get done for him, but for the most part as Joe Niemeyer said, Wednesday was a good day.