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Meet the Folks from Helping a Hero - Up until the 4th of July, I'm featuring founders, ambassadors, and recipients of Helping a Hero's incredible work for the military community. Meet some of 'em now!
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#pauladeen #loveandbestdishes
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0:00
- Hey y'all.
0:01
Today is such a privilege for me
0:04
to be able to introduce to y'all
0:07
some very special people in my life.
0:10
And I'm so proud to be associated with Helping a Hero.
0:15
This woman next to me is,
0:18
I truly believe she can move a mountain.
0:22
And her name is Meredith Iler,
0:24
and she started this foundation for our warriors
0:29
that come back home and are missing limbs,
0:33
and then they have to go into these homes
0:36
that are very hard to live with, you know, to live in
0:41
when you are missing some body parts.
0:43
So they get a custom home build for their disability
0:50
to make their life easier.
0:53
So this woman is doing something very, very special.
0:57
And said she can move mountains,
1:02
but first, I would like to just go around the room.
1:05
'Cause once this girl gets talking, she don't shut up.
1:08
(women laugh)
1:10
- Learned it from somebody.
1:14
- Don't give her a microphone, she don't need that.
1:17
But I just wanna introduce y'all to some people in the room.
1:21
This precious lady right here, Wendy Jordan.
1:23
She and her husband Robert, they are supportive,
1:29
and they give so freely
1:35
of their money to help build these homes.
1:38
So I wish we had a lot more people like you.
1:42
Y'all are very special.
1:43
And this, can I have a drum roll?
1:47
(women imitate drum roll)
1:49
This is Tate Stevens,
1:51
and Tate won "The X Factor" in what year?
1:55
- 2012. - [Paula] 2012.
1:57
And he is an ambassador, wouldn't you say?
2:02
And then precious Travis.
2:06
(indistinct)
2:08
(group laughs)
2:11
And you haven't gotten your home yet, have you?
2:14
It's being built,
2:15
and they're letting you design your kitchen
2:17
the way you want it. - Yep.
2:19
- [Paula] Because Travis is an avid cook.
2:22
He loves to cook.
2:23
So we gonna cook something in a later video.
2:27
And this, last but not least, is JP
2:32
and his beautiful wife Crystal.
2:35
And you lost your legs in?
2:40
- [Meredith] (indistinct) Afghanistan.
2:41
- [Paula] In Afghanistan, yes.
2:43
So he has his home.
2:48
- [Meredith] I got a secret for you.
2:49
- [Paula] Oh, I want you to tell me.
2:50
All right, so I'm turning this conversation over to her.
2:54
- The fun thing is that he moved into his house single.
2:59
- Yes. - And Lee Greenwood,
3:00
your good friend, gave him the keys to his house.
3:04
But he also helped design a recording studio
3:07
inside his house, but guess what?
3:09
It's a secret room hidden by a bookshelf.
3:12
So if you don't know about it, gotta kinda go find it.
3:16
And then Lee also arranged for him to get a Yamaha piano.
3:20
And now he plays piano, he plays guitars,
3:22
he tours the country.
3:24
He goes and speaks to Army
3:25
active duty soldiers on resiliency.
3:28
And he and his beautiful wife Crystal
3:30
are out there motivating our troops every day saying,
3:33
hey, if I can get through losing both my legs,
3:36
you can get through a tough day going through a tough motor.
3:39
- Right.
3:40
And that's what impresses me so about these people,
3:43
these men and women.
3:45
There's somebody missing here
3:46
that I was hoping Sue could come.
3:47
She lost her legs in Afghanistan.
3:51
I think the tank she was in.
3:53
- She actually had come home from leave with her family
3:56
and volunteered to go on that mission
3:58
a day before she was supposed to report for duty.
4:02
And what's amazing is it was a humanitarian mission,
4:05
they were gonna help people,
4:06
and they hit an anti tank mine, took out her legs,
4:09
she lost her best friend.
4:11
And the neat thing though is that Paula
4:14
donated the furniture for her living room.
4:16
- Yes, she's so sweet. - And gave her her pots
4:18
and pans and made sure that her kitchen
4:20
had everything that she needed,
4:22
and it really meant the world to Sue
4:24
to have you there. - She's so precious.
4:25
And she just got married. - Yes, she did.
4:29
(Paula laughs)
4:32
- And she had some four-legged furry black friends come,
4:37
great little bears.
4:38
They were trying to crawl in and eat her wedding cake.
4:41
- Yes, I saw the video of those bears.
4:42
They were cubs.
4:43
I said I'd be so frightened that the mother bear
4:45
was somewhere around.
4:46
All right, so tell everybody
4:48
when you founded this foundation,
4:52
and just a little bit about it
4:56
and how they can get involved.
4:58
- Well, thanks.
4:59
Well, you know, Helping a Hero
5:00
really kind of started by accident
5:02
because General Tommy Franks
5:05
had been involved with the group
5:06
that had promised some homes and asked for my help.
5:09
So we built the first home,
5:11
and then that group decided it was too hard to build homes,
5:14
and they didn't wanna do it anymore.
5:16
So I went to my rotary club, and I said, hey,
5:19
why don't we do another home?
5:21
Because we're gonna be honoring Secretary Bakers,
5:24
our Distinguished Citizen,
5:26
and let' give it to a Marine
5:28
in honor of his service in the Marines.
5:29
And they said, great.
5:31
Go raise some money, you be in charge. and that's great.
5:33
So that was our second house.
5:35
Then I got a Marine on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
5:38
- Yes.
5:39
I actually did one of those shows,
5:40
but it wasn't with a service person.
5:45
- Well, I tell you what,
5:46
they did a great job with those shows.
5:47
And really showed- - I'm telling you, yes.
5:49
- Everyday Americans how big a hearts people have
5:52
and how much people are willing to give.
5:54
And so we made it to the day before
5:56
we were bringing this marine home in Kansas City, Missouri.
5:59
And they said, by the way, we know you nominated the hero,
6:03
we know you've raised all the money,
6:04
we know you made this happen,
6:06
but we can't say the Rotary Club of Houston
6:10
is paying off a house in Kansas City
6:12
because we're an entertainment show.
6:14
- Yeah.
6:15
- Do you have another name?
6:17
And I said, well, I called my girlfriend
6:19
that I had seen at a dedication of a boat, the USS Texas.
6:24
And she had been on this fishing group
6:27
called Helping a Hero.
6:28
And I said, Hey, y'all have a great name,
6:30
we have $300,000 in the bank, could we merge?
6:33
So we merged in four hours,
6:35
and welcomed that hero home.
6:39
- That's great.
6:40
- And we got his mortgage paid off,
6:42
and that's how it started, and here we are-
6:44
- And what year was that, Meredith?
6:45
- That was in 2008.
6:48
And then we decided to try to, in Houston alone,
6:52
we actually had a single amputee, a double amputee,
6:56
a triple amputee, arm amputee up the road in Beaumont,
7:01
and a youngin with a double arm amputee also,
7:04
and a paraplegic, one who's a quadriplegic.
7:08
And what was amazing is that that home for the paraplegic
7:11
changed my life.
7:13
And it changed my life because he wrote me a thank you note.
7:16
It was about three days after he'd moved in,
7:19
and the thank you note didn't say thank you
7:21
for this great house,
7:22
thank you for the wheelchair accessibility,
7:24
thank you for the fact I can take my own shower.
7:26
I might not have read that as,
7:28
it might not have hit me as hard.
7:30
- Yeah, yeah.
7:31
- The note I got said, thank you for my garage.
7:36
Today it started to rain.
7:39
At my old apartment,
7:40
it took me four minutes to get out of my car,
7:43
into my wheelchair, and into my home.
7:45
And because I'm a paraplegic,
7:47
I cannot take my own bath, get in the shower, do anything,
7:51
I'd cover myself in blankets
7:54
and wait for my wife to come home and help me.
7:57
And many times I would get pneumonia,
7:58
and then have to get rushed to the hospital
8:01
all because I couldn't get out of the car
8:02
and into the house faster than four minutes.
8:05
But I slowed down because today I have a garage.
8:08
And I think when you really realize the simple things.
8:11
- When they really break it down.
8:13
- Yeah.
8:14
I mean, they cannot move into an apartment and function.
8:17
And without our help and having wider doors
8:20
and roll in shower, roll under sinks,
8:22
and all the things that our heroes need to make life easier.
8:26
And then being able to do special things
8:28
like a recording studio because of a dream that JP had.
8:31
He wanted to be a recording artist.
8:33
He was just at the beginning.
8:35
He was told that he could not ever sing or speak again,
8:38
and we wanted to encourage that.
8:40
And it's been a great investment.
8:42
- You know, it's just amazing how
8:46
God puts us sometimes in the places that we need to be.
8:50
Not necessarily we wanna be,
8:51
but in the places that we need to be.
8:55
And you wouldn't be sitting here had you not at Afghanistan.
9:01
- [JP] Yeah.
9:01
- There's a good chance that you would be
9:05
somewhere else doing something,
9:07
but you've been favored, you know?
9:12
- That's why I tell people thank God I was blown up.
9:15
- [Paula] Yes.
9:16
- Because it changed my life forever and never,
9:21
I can't imagine another life.
9:24
I've met so many amazing people,
9:27
so many amazing warriors like Travis and so many others.
9:31
So many big hearts that have been able
9:34
to collectively help our service members and lift us up.
9:40
Not give us a hand out, but a hand up.
9:42
- [Paula] Yes.
9:43
- And above all, I wouldn't have met
9:46
my beautiful wife Crystal. - [Paula] That's right.
9:48
- And all of that happened because I was blown up,
9:51
and I only did just a little bit of my service
9:54
to give to this nation,
9:56
yet it seems like they've given so much in return.
9:59
- Well, I,
10:03
I don't wanna get emotional start crying,
10:06
but these people are the reason
10:09
that we're able to do what we are doing right this moment.
10:14
Y'all are so important.
10:15
These men and women that go and fight for us.
10:22
And probably not,
10:27
as a whole, not respected enough for that.
10:31
I think people just take it for granted.
10:35
So this is a wonderful way that we can say thank you.
10:40
And these guys, their personalities,
10:44
and the women, and the women.
10:46
I'm so sorry Sue's not here,
10:48
but last night we went to (indistinct) and had dinner,
10:51
and I was looking through the chicken bowl,
10:54
and I said, "I'm looking for a leg.
10:56
"I need a leg."
10:57
JP said, "Well, I need two legs."
11:00
(group laughs)
11:05
And everybody cracked up.
11:07
So, you know, they could so easily be somewhere,
11:11
poor me, poor me, crying,
11:15
but you're not.
11:17
- Well you know, Paula, the thing that's neat
11:20
is when I made the phone call and said,
11:21
"Hey, do y'all wanna go cook at Paula Deen's?"
11:24
They were like, "I don't care what's on the calendar.
11:26
"I am going to Paula Deen's."
11:27
They have so much fun with you
11:29
and so excited to cook with you.
11:30
- I just, I hate that Sue couldn't be here and...
11:36
- And Shiloh. - Shiloh!
11:37
I just knew Shiloh was gonna come.
11:39
So love to you, Shiloh. - Yes.
11:42
- Shiloh's face was burned.
11:45
- So he actually was, he was a driver also,
11:48
and they hit a 600 pound IED.
11:51
It's very big.
11:52
And all three of the young soldiers in his truck all died,
11:56
and he was the only one.
11:57
So he engulfed in flames, it burned him all over,
12:01
he lost his ears.
12:02
And- - 85%.
12:04
- Yeah, 85% of his body.
12:06
But you know, it's amazing.
12:07
Not only does he have fun with it, just like JP.
12:11
But I'll tell you what.
12:12
When my son was only four,
12:15
Shiloh would kind of photo bomb him,
12:18
but he'd put on one Spock ear and one Dumbo ear.
12:22
And then my son would be looking at him and going.
12:26
- That's so Shiloh.
12:27
(indistinct)
12:29
(women laugh)
12:30
Shiloh told a story one night at one of these banquets
12:36
that you did so beautifully.
12:39
And he said he went in the hat store to buy him a hat.
12:43
And he said he had on his ears.
12:46
But when he went to put the hat on,
12:47
his ears fell off and onto the floor.
12:49
Is that a true story? - It is.
12:52
He has magnets.
12:55
He has human ears, (indistinct) ears, Dumbo ears.
12:58
So he can interchange and fool kids.
13:00
- I have never seen him with the ears, but.
13:04
- We'll get him to model for you it.
13:07
We'll let him model for you on the podcast.
13:09
- He told me the story, he was on my podcast
13:10
and he told that story and how it happened.
13:13
He wanted a cowboy hat, right?
13:14
He's from Texas, he said I want a cowboy hat.
13:17
And he said his scar tissue,
13:19
he healed up enough that he wasn't gonna need
13:20
any more surgery on his head, this and that.
13:23
I want a cowboy hat.
13:24
He went into the western store,
13:25
and he said the girl helping him was awesome.
13:28
Tried one on it, didn't fit.
13:30
She said, I have him, so I know what to do.
13:32
She put it on top of his head and she popped it like that,
13:36
his ears popped off, started bouncing around on the floor.
13:38
She just backed up in shock, like freaked out.
13:41
- I know she wanted that floor to eat her up.
13:44
- And he said he felt bad.
13:46
He was embarrassed for her, not for himself.
13:49
He's trying to scramble around, grab his ears
13:51
'cause they're just little silicone ears bouncing around.
13:54
- They're very expensive.
13:56
- And she's trying to get 'em to put 'em back on,
13:58
so he didn't want her to feel bad.
14:00
And yeah, no, that is true.
14:02
- So I was hoping that he could be here with us
14:06
because it is just amazing the way these men and women
14:10
have decided to handle what they've been through.
14:14
- Well, I think it's neat too as they share their story.
14:17
One thing that Helping a Hero has done
14:19
is enable them to get together, share their stories,
14:22
encourage one another. - That's right.
14:23
And they each know how they feel.
14:25
- Yeah.
14:26
And they really can, when they have a bad day,
14:28
they have someone to call.
14:30
And I think that's what really is the family
14:33
about Helping a Hero that's so unique and so special
14:37
in the home building group.
14:37
Because it's not just about the house,
14:39
it's really about a home, and then about a family.
14:43
And then we have people like Tate
14:44
that'll take them out hunting and fishing.
14:47
And we're so grateful to Bass Pros.
14:48
- That's wonderful.
14:50
Oh, Johnny Morris has got a heart.
14:53
A huge, huge heart.
14:55
And he just,
14:59
did he donate 25, was it?
15:03
- So what he did is he donated 10 houses,
15:06
and then we were on national TV giving the first one away,
15:10
and he announced he was gonna give 25%
15:14
of the cost of the next 100 houses.
15:17
- 25 for them, yes. - And then just a week ago,
15:19
he had done that 30 day match, which is amazing.
15:24
And now we're gonna be able to surprise
15:25
even more heroes with houses.
15:28
So it's really the generosity of people like Wendy,
15:31
her husband Robert, Johnny Morris.
15:33
I mean, it's amazing what God's been doing
15:36
to just bring people to come alongside our heroes
15:39
and help them have the future.
15:41
- Travis?
15:42
Oh, excuse me.
15:43
- No, I was gonna say just like Travis just got.
15:44
- [Paula] I ask you Travis, are we keeping you awake?
15:47
(group laughs)
15:51
(crosstalk)
15:55
(audio cuts out)
16:00
- Well, I mean, we'll have to get in touch with him.
16:03
(group laughs)
16:06
- Do you know that his house is under construction?
16:09
- Yes, he's designing the kitchen.
16:11
- He is, but you know what's even more fun?
16:12
The name of his plan without us changing the name
16:16
is called the Freedom Plan.
16:18
Is that just so appropriate?
16:20
And Lennar Homes is building it.
16:22
And Lennar just gave us 10 houses across the country also.
16:26
- How many houses are under construction right now?
16:30
- I think right now it's about 15.
16:32
- That's wonderful.
16:34
Wonderful.
16:36
So we're never gonna get these guys in the kitchen
16:41
if we don't get started.
16:43
I could sit here and I could talk to 'em all day.
16:45
It's such a blessing.
16:48
It's such a blessing for me to be with y'all.
16:51
- Well, it's a blessing for us to be here,
16:53
so thank you so much.
16:55
- So make sure you watch the cooking videos.
16:57
We gonna see what they really made out of.
17:00
(group laughs)
17:04
Hey y'all, it's Paula Deen.
17:06
Now, if you enjoyed this video,
17:08
be sure to like it and click the subscribe button
17:12
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17:14
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17:18
Love and best dishes, y'all.
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