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The first Warm Winter Wish of 2016 was one that broke the mold for Bryant. The Lincoln Journal Star published an article about a family in need on the first day Froggy 98.1 and 105.3 WOW FM began publicizing Bryant’s Warm Winter Wish nomination period. The family of Mark & Jen had their their world turned upside down the day after Thanksgiving. Mark had been sick for weeks, finally after waiting for test results from his doctor bad news was delivered. Mark’s diagnosis was adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the of the blood and bone marrow.
Doctor’s immediately started Mark on an aggressive plan to battle the cancer. Mark as the income provider of the family had to take leave from his work to travel back and forth from his home in Friend, Nebraska to treatments in Omaha. The family with 7 children, one recently born, was now with out a income and many questions about what the future held.
The families source of heat, possibly the original boiler installed in the home, broke down. The family was now without their primary source of income, had added medical and travel expenses, and was without their most reliable source of heat. The family turned to space heaters, to keep parts of the home warm, however the need was over taxing the homes fuse panel so fused were popping regularly. Some mornings the home’s temperatures would drop into the 40s.
Mark and Jen’s friends stepped up by getting word out for help, resulting in the Lincoln Journal Star article. The morning the article was published a family member of a Bryant employee brought the article to the company’s attention. Usually Bryant waits until the Warm Winter Wish nomination period is over before making any selections, however they felt the time was more than coincidence. Members of the Bryant team contacted Jen and Mark and made visits to the home to assess the work needed. The team was worried about the integrity of the old boiler’s piping system and felt it would be impossible to run a new pipe system due to minimal accessibility in the crawl space. Ultimately though the Bryant decided to select Jen and Mark as Warm Winter Wish candidates and take on their project immediately. A new forced air system would be installed, to not only provide them heat again, but take care of their cooling as well.
The project was no easy task. Since the home previous heat source was a boiler, the home did not have any ductwork. In order to supply all rooms with sufficient conditioned air, it was decided to locate the air handler/electric furnace in the attic space. Being that the home was an older home and additions had been made over years, including to the roof line. Learning that Bryant had taken on helping Mark and Jen, the Lincoln Journal Star published a follow-up article.
Although the project became a greater project than anticipated and took nearly an entire week the Bryant team felt good about what had been accomplished. A deserving family, that a small Nebraska town had rallied behind, had comfort restored for the holidays and a major worry taken off their list.
Listen in as the Steve and Kevin along with the morning crew from Froggy 98.1 call Mark to see how things are going with a heating and cooling system in their home.
