A fully-outfitted new home on a landscaped lot is being donated to a needy family in Des Moines today as a Thanksgiving gift. It’s a project that’s brought together 50 Central Iowa companies and groups that’ve donated everything from labor to appliances and a security system.Lloyd Clarke is chairman of Clarke Companies, a real estate developer, builder and property management company which built the home and coordinated the work of all of the other donors. Clarke says this Thanksgiving project has involved the entire central Iowa region.Clarke says the home on Southeast Ninth Street in Des Moines isn’t nearly as big as the one given to the McCaughey family in Carlisle last year, but it’s still good-sized at one-thousand and 55 square feet.Clarke says he can’t put a dollar value on the home because of the unusual nature of all goods being donated — from businesses, contractor, governments and organizations. The United Way will announce the family which will receive the home in a two p-m ceremony today. The family’s name: Juan and Debbie Longorin, chosen from 40 applicants. The couple’s been married 24 years and are the parents of a one-year-old son, a two-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old daughter. The family lost all their furnishings in a flood. Debbie is permanently disabled from complications of a c-section.
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