Groundbreaking celebrates new Fisher House next door to Veterans Affairs hospital

San Jose Mercury News, Friday, June 17, 2005

Veterans, service members, fundraisers and hospital staff members gathered outside the Veterans Affairs Medical Hospital in Palo Alto on Thursday to celebrate the groundbreaking of a new Fisher House.

The facility will allow families to stay near injured soldiers and Marines free of charge while the service members recuperate. Palo Alto's will be the 33rd in the nation and will be built on an acre next to the veterans' hospital.

At the ceremony, speakers emphasized that the house will free families from financial worries and let them focus on healing themselves and their loved ones.

In an emotional speech given by Lt. Scott Smiley and his wife, Tiffany, the couple spoke of how important the house will be to them. Smiley was seriously injured by a suicide car bomb in Iraq, leaving him blind and missing part of his skull.

He is in Palo Alto undergoing therapy to learn to cope with his blindness, and his wife noted that the new house will help her better support her husband and heal along with him.

The 21-suite house, which will be the nation's largest, is slated to be finished by the end of the year.

So far, about $1.5 million has been raised for the 21-suite house, with a goal of $2 million. The Fisher House Foundation, based in Rockville, Md., then matches the money raised locally. Foundation officials said they will continue to raise funds to close the gap for the Palo Alto project.