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Cover Feature in the Wausau City Pages
By Rick LaFrombois
Extreme Makeover, Wausau Style - The community rallies to build a new home for the Teeters, a family who wants to help others with special needs children
A familiar story You might be familiar with the Teeters. WAOW TV 9’s Cami Mountain produced a two-part feature story on the family’s rare ordeal in May. Look for Cami’s follow-up story July 22 about the community’s efforts to build the Teeters a new home. It will first air on TV 9’s Wake Up Wisconsin. Cami then will document the construction project through to completion.
Ellie Reineck and Wally Binder don’t dream of being the next Ty Pennington, though in a behind-thescenes way the duo could measure up to the star of ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover.
Reineck, a marketing professional for River Valley Bank, and Binder, a designer with Binder-Ghidorzi Architectural Services, have quietly worked the past few months to round up support for Annie and Chris Teeters, a couple in need of a new home better equipped to raise their two children born with a rare chromosome abnormality.
Zak, age 5, and Callie, 17 months, both are missing part of Chromosome 3 and have too much Chromosome 6 — the only two kids in the world known with such an abnormality, which causes havoc with their cognitive and physical development. The disorder affects the basic structure of their bodies, leading to numerous (and some yet unknown) challenges for the kids; their ’50sera multi-level home further handicaps their progress and makes them more susceptible to illness.
Zak, just 32 pounds, can take some steps with a walker but needs a wheelchair to get around. His parents hope, but aren’t sure that he’ll be able to walk someday. He is legally blind and cannot talk, but communicates through gestures, using sounds and some assistive devices. Callie still cannot crawl. Both have heart problems, which have been manageable to this point, and compromised immune systems. They also have permanent feeding tubes attached to their bodies to help maintain adequate nutrition. So many people already have stepped forward to help provide the Teeters a new accessible home, that the couple feels “guardedly optimistic” their dream soon will become a reality. Organizers hope to break ground this fall or next spring.
Part of the dream includes constructing a community room inside the home to serve other families caring for children with special needs. The room would host playgroups, support groups and potentially therapy sessions for children with special needs — services that are lacking in the Wausau area, says Annie Teeters. The Teeters also want the community room to serve as a toy lending library where parents donate or borrow a specialized toy designed to aid their child’s development. Such toys often are expensive and some families struggle to obtain them.
If you meet Zak and Callie they’ll likely steal a piece of your heart, which in part explains the outpouring of community support. They smile often and giggle,and roll with the hand life has dealt them — each day bringing unforeseen challenges and joys. Annie Teeters’ desire to help families facing similar circumstances has seemingly heightened the community’s giving spirit.
“She just knows firsthand there isn’t a lot out there for families with special needs,” Reineck says. As a result, “Contractors who normally bid against each other are coming together to work for this.” That includes Bud Graveen Construction of Wausau, which has agreed to build the home at a reduced cost to the family.
Mark Munson, an attorney with Ruder Ware, is helping the Teeters establish nonprofit status for the community room, called Shared Blessings, Inc. Chris and Annie would facilitate the play and support groups, and a friend, Jenn Golbach, wants to help. “When Zak was 1 year old, I just wanted to talk to someone who gets our life,” Annie Teeters says. “Who do you talk to? There is no support group. The reality is there are a lot of kids out there with special needs.”
Linda Salzman, manager of the Wausau Family Resource Center, says her agency has had no place to refer families with special needs children since the Marathon County birth to 3 program lost its funding some years ago. The program had hosted playgroups at North Central Health Care. Salzman says she would gladly refer families to the Teeters when the Shared Blessings community room opens. “Sometimes families will come here to our (play groups), but they have different needs. For parents to be together to support each other, that’s really important.”
Binder, who’s designing the home for free mostly in his spare time, says the community room will encompass about 400 square feet, or be roughly 15-feet by 25-feet. Adjacent to it will be a small kitchenette, lounge and a bathroom for adults — a place to get away for a moment, perhaps eat a lunch while the kids play.
The new home’s original design encompassed about 3,500 square feet primarily on one level, though Binder, the Teeters and River Valley Bank met this week to scale back plans to lessen its overall cost. The Teeters will be left with a low-interest mortgage, held by RiverValley, and its amount still is being determined. After all in-kind donations of services and materials are tallied, fundraising efforts will get under way to close the gap between the remaining costs and the mortgage the Teeters are able to afford.
Unlike the homes built by ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover, this won’t be a model of excess. It will be a home that the Teeters are able to afford to live in longterm, on one income should Annie have to stay home with the kids after they get through school. All signs point to a normal life span for Zak and Callie, so Annie’s new goal is that the kids will be able to remain in the home while receiving assistive care should they outlive their parents.
Given the strains many families face in the current economy, everyone involved in the project recognizes the need to tread lightly on the community’s giving spirit when it comes to asking for support. Binder calls his role “a stewardship” of the community’s trust for this project. At the same time he must meet the needs of the children. So designing the home has been like walking a “tightrope,” he says.
There’s an awareness, too, that some are critical of the Teeters for having a second child, knowing there was a 16% chance Zak’s sibling would have the same genetic disorder. After Zak was born, doctors traced the gene back three generations through Annie’s family. Because it had not manifested itself until Zak’s birth in 2005, the couple hoped their second child would be born without the same abnormalities.
Knowing the risks, Annie says she and Chris “put it in God’s hands.” Born in February 2009, Callie’s physical traits made it clear that she had the same genetic disorder.
After further adjusting their dreams of a normal family life — think camping, fishing and hunting outings —the Teeters plunged forward determined to provide the best care possible for the kids. The experience while exhausting and at times overwhelming, has brought the couple closer.
Both parents maintain full-time jobs, and insurance has paid most medical expenses, including the ongoing nursing care needed to relieve them when they’re away at work or when they need sleep at night.
There are myriad expenses, though, such as ear drops, diapers — Zak still wears them — special toys, and assistive devices that steadily drain the family’s income, which is why the Teeters are unable to afford a new home on their own.
The Teeters family was in the process of recording a video to apply to ABC for a makeover when Reineck approached them with the idea of a local makeover, albeit sans Pennington’s bullhorn.
Before meeting the Teeters, Reineck was seeking a catalyst for a new marketing campaign to show how a local bank can help build community. She approached WAOW TV 9 — her prior employer when she anchored newscasts under her maiden name Ellen Rock — about bringing attention to a local home makeover for one lucky family.
While searching for that family, the Teeters kept coming up in conversations with people throughout the community, Reineck says. When approached a few months ago, the Teeters could hardly believe their ears.
“Honestly, I was very overwhelmed and tears came to my eyes that a group of people were so willing and caring and loving to help my children get the best possible house for them,” Chris Teeters says. “You always have acts of kindness in your life, but this was very overwhelming. Very surprising. Things just never came easy for me. I always worked very hard.”
The project gained immediate traction, especially aided by Annie’s dream to operate the Shared Blessings community room, which Reineck learned about after meeting the Teeters.
When contacted by Reineck, Kolbe and Kolbe Millwork Co. was interested, says Jeff Delonay, executive vice president. Seeing Binder’s design for the community room, though, sealed the deal.
“Once we saw that there was a community room in here and people were able to come in and get support … and progress their kids forward, that’s what really brought us on board,” Delonay says.
Greenheck Fan Corp. has agreed to donate a filtration system to provide the best possible air quality for Zak and Callie, both of who have compromised immune systems. Kohler — which donates to homes built by ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover — has agreed to provide the plumbing fixtures.
The Teeters met in college and Chris moved his family back to Wausau where he enjoys a tremendous network of family support. When Zak was born, the Teeters purchased the multi-level home in Stettin adjacent to Chris’ parents hoping that Zak someday would walk. But the home’s hallways are narrow and its carpeted floors inhibit his movement with the walker. Because Zak and Callie could not tolerate the dust kicked up during remodeling, the Teeters are unable to make home improvements.
Chris’ parents have given them a parcel of land on the opposite side of their house for the new home, a solution that will allow them to stay put during the estimated four months of construction — nobody’s attempting to pull off a week-long build similar to ABC’s makeovers.
The existing home is fine for a family with able bodied children — getting to the main level requires traversing a flight of stairs — so that home will be sold when the new one is complete.
From plumbers to electricians and guys pounding the nails, many have stepped foot in the Teeters’ home to gain ideas about what’s needed in the new one. By the time they leave, most have connected with Zak and Callie, Chris Teeters says.
“Zak will roll over to them and climb up their leg and want to say hi to them,” Chris says.
NASCAR driver Scott Wimmer has a brother-in-law with a child who is missing chromosome, so the Teeters’ story “hit home to me,” Wimmer says. He plans to hit up NASCAR sponsors and fellow drivers for donations and might help organize a fundraiser. A few weeks ago, he dropped by the Teeters’ house on Stettin Drive to meet the kids.
Zak has a fondness for sunglasses, and when Wimmer picked him up, Zak plucked them from his face. The two then tussled over them, creating an instant bond between the two.
“When you get to meet kids and play with them, you really get a lot different perspective,” Wimmer says.
Says Chris, “They see the pureness in Zak’s soul and the unconditional love that he has. They just fall in love with him. They don’t see a child with disabilities, they see a child with unlimited possibilities.”
Binder, who has burned mostly personal time designing the home, says, “These kids just grab your heart. Somehow we’ve got to make this happen. If it means a few sleepless nights, hey, it’s what it’s got to be.
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