CLEVELAND — The organization Homes for Heroes thanks those who serve our country and our communities by helping them save money on their homes.

It was established just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and this year the organization celebrated its 50,000th hero. 

One of those was Leann Alferio, a special education coordinator for Brunswick City Schools.

“I get the opportunity to work in all seven of our elementary buildings with our students who have disabilities and it can range anywhere from a slight reading disability to medically fragile," Alferio said. 

She’s dedicated her career to ensuring these students can just be kids.

“It really is a blessing to get to see these kids as kids because often they're looked at as their disability first," she said. "And so getting to work so closely with them, you really get to appreciate everything they have to offer.”

It's this work that lead her to the organization that helped her when she fell on difficult times, and she said the project became one of her largest blessings.

Alferio is a mother of six, including a set of quintuplets.

When she got divorced, she feared she would have to move them out of their home,

“So my kids were going through a lot of change," she said. "We were on the brink of the pandemic, and then I'm faced with this situation where I'm afraid that I'm going to have to introduce my kids to another change and uproot them and move them to a new home, and that was the last thing I wanted to do for them.”

The Homes for Heroes project allowed Alferio and her family to stay put.

The project's local heroes, Lori Saucier said, are not looking for recognition.

Saucier is a lender with CrossCountry Mortgage who has worked with Homes for Heroes for seven years.

"So when we can actually tell them thank you and provide them with a savings or a check that might, you know, be Christmas dinner or might be the moving company or might get their utilities turned on. That's huge," she said. "And especially, you know, now with everything going up in cost."

Alferio calls Saucier and Homes for Heroes a blessing.

"Not even the space for six kids but just wanting to keep the consistency of family traditions that we've started here and that they look forward to, and I wanted to keep something normal for them in the midst of chaos.”

This allows her to focus on family and her students.

Alferio is part of an effort to build an all-abilities playground in Brunswick.

Her goal, she said, is to not let her students be seen for their disability but rather as just kids. 

"They want to make friends, and they want to play," she said. "And I want to take away the stigma of looking at these students as 'oh they're so different than me' or 'what's wrong with them?' And I just want it to be like 'hey, my name is Leann. You want to be friends? You want to play?'"