INSTALL Twin Cities member Mike Strobel (foreground) helps install wood flooring with INSTALL instructor Chris Favreau (background).


INSTALL Twin Cities member Steve Damsgaard helps out a fellow veteran. Steve served in the Gulf War in 1991 as a member of the Marine Corps.  

INSTALL Twin Cities floor covering professionals helped to create a specially designed house for a Minnesota military veteran who recently sustained severe injuries while serving in Iraq.

Sgt. Marcus Kuboy of New Hope, Minn. Was wounded in March 2007 when a humvee he was riding in hit a roadside explosive. Kuboy sustained serious injuries to his legs, back, arm, jaw and more. Today, he relies mostly on a wheel chair. INSTALL floor covering installers joined other union workers to build a handicapped-accessible home for Kuboy in Woodbury in late August.

INSTALL Twin Cities, a regional affiliate of the national INSTALL program, provided the manpower to install the flooring for the entire house. The project was coordinated by the nonprofit group Homes for Our Troops, which has already built 25 homes for wounded veterans in other parts of the country, and has 30 other homes in various planning and construction phases. Although Homes for Our Troops has some national sponsors, it relies primarily on contributions from volunteers and others in the community where the soldier lives.