Companies combine efforts to gift Princeton veteran new roof

By RANDY CAPPS

PRINCETON — Ralmaranda Best grew up next to the railroad tracks just outside of Princeton. She raised her four sons in the same home, and her dad carved the year “1966” when the concrete was drying on the front porch.

Thanks to a leaky roof, recently the house was a little wet on the inside, too. But no longer. Thanks to Purple Heart Homes, Raleigh-based Peachtree Company and Owens Corning, Best now has a new roof on her family home.

“I’m so excited,” she said. “Oh my God, I am, so, so excited. ... It was leaking on the back side of the house. It got to the point where it was coming through the sheet rock. When it would rain, it would just kind of puddle there.

“I was born and raised right here. I left for a while and came back. I raised my kids here for the most part. This is home. It’s where my mom and dad lived, so this house means a lot to me.”

Ralmaranda Best, second from right, poses with Brett Thompson, far right, owner of Peachtree Company, John Pickard, sales manager with Owens Corning, second from left, and Jared Bullock, from Peachtree Company, on the far left.

“I come from a military family — granddad, uncle, my dad are all veterans,” Peachtree Company owner Brett Thompson said. “We appreciate everything that (veterans) do, and honestly we just love the opportunity to be able to give back. It’s through what they do and their sacrifice that we’re even able to be here running this business and have this opportunity. So, we like to thank them and reward them and help them out when we can.”

Owens Corning Area Sales Manager John Pickard echoed Thompson’s sentiment.

“We work with Purple Heart Homes to identify veterans that have a need,” he said. “We partner with a Platinum Preferred contractor, Peachtree Company, who donates the labor and Owens Corning donates the materials. And we get to put on a new roof. We feel that (veterans) have given the country so much that we want to give something back to them.”

Purple Heart Homes, based in Statesville, has partnered with Owens Corning and contractors to replace more than 300 roofs nationwide through its Roof Deployment Project.

“I was online, going through anything that could help veterans and I saw Purple Heart Homes,” Best said. “I just want to say thank you to Purple Heart Homes, Peachtree and Owens Corning — everyone who had a hand in this — for helping me fix my home up.”