Roof4Roof of Carlstadt aided this woman and hundreds of other people in Colombia.
CARLSTADT, N.J. — In 2010, Carlstadt roofer Chuck Anania, visited Cali, Colombia with his family.
He was deeply moved by the extreme poverty and terrible conditions he saw: collapsing, leaky roofs posed serious health, safety and quality of life issues to many, including children and the elderly.
As a result, he created Roof4Roof, modeled on helping those unable to help themselves in a continuous, sustainable way.
Anania recently returned to where it all started – Cali, Colombia, and this month, Roof4Roof is donating new roofs to 27 families and emergency home repairs to 3 families in the Menga neighborhood.
In total, Anania has assisted more than 200 families in Cali.
“One of life’s most basic needs is shelter,” the roofer said.
“Keeping a safe, dry roof over your family’s heads has become increasingly difficult for many homeowners.”
Over the past seven years, Anania and Roof4Roof have used proceeds from every project they complete to help families in need with emergency roofing and emergency home repair. Along the way, they have donated more than $700,000 of company profit and helped more than 700 families in the US, Colombia, Guatemala and the Philippines.
“After eight, long years of dedicating much of our company’s time and resources to help the families of Cali, Colombia, we have such a great sense of satisfaction in knowing how many lives we have effected,” Anania said.
While Anania expected this to be his final trip to Cali, additional families requested help while he was there. Therefore, a final trip to Cali is planned for the beginning of 2018 to help a final 50-75 families. Anania looks forward to completing Cali and moving on to other geographic locations that can benefit from his giving work.
“We’ve received many requests for help from other parts of Colombia and other countries, but we have not made a decision where to travel next since there is still a great need in other parts of Cali and locally in the U.S., where we have existing infrastructures to complete these projects,” Anania said.
