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At Alicie Callaham's Upper Marlboro home, the new and extensive ramp from the ground to the front porch is hard to miss.

The 57-year-old mother lost her 21-year-old son, David, in a January car crash on the Capital Beltway near Landover, an incident that also left her son Daniel, 19, paralyzed from the waist down. Daniel was scheduled to come home from the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C., in April and Callaham needed her home to be wheelchair accessible, while facing rapidly mounting medical bills.

On Saturday, a host of volunteers, including Prince George's County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), Callaham's fellow employees from Joint Base Andrews, and crewmembers from Air Force One, will make additional repairs and renovations to her home as part of the annual home-repair event organized by the nonprofit Christmas in April.

The home, which has been undergoing renovations since early April, is among more than 80 homes in the county that volunteers are renovating Saturday to help people in need, most of whom are elderly and disabled.

Although the Callaham family does not fit the typical candidate for Christmas in April and they applied after the deadline, Mary Kucharski, the organization's executive director, said Christmas in April joined forces with Callaham's church, Greater Morningstar Apostolic Ministries in Largo, to get the necessary changes in place in time for Daniel's return home April 22. Callaham contacted Kucharski after hearing about the organization from another churchgoer.

"From her call to us, she was in such a desperate need," Kucharski said. "She couldn't get him home unless she had a way to get him inside. She was looking to us to give her a hand, so we were able to do that."

This year, the nonprofit will renovate 84 homes, with around 3,200 volunteers. Last year, the group, founded in 1989, was able to renovate 100 homes with 3,500 volunteers, but Kucharski said they had to cut back based on the tough economic climate.

Although Callaham said she is shouldering a great deal of grief over the loss of her older son, she said the outpouring of support from the community, Baker's office and Joint Base Andrews, where she works as a paralegal specialist in the office of the Judge Advocate General, has been nothing less than "miraculous."

"The Air Force was out there to help to build the ramp [in early April]," she said. "And then Freddi was on the case, jumping around to make sure this happens and that happens and every thing gets done," she said, referring to longtime Christmas in April volunteer Freddi Vaughn, who led the renovation work at the Callaham home.

Vaughn, a former Mitchellville resident who now lives in Pikesville and has volunteered with Christmas in April for 22 years, said the coordination among groups for this house alone has been astounding.

"As the senior population increases, more and more people are aging in place, staying in the homes they've paid for," Vaughn said. "Because of their income and physical ability or inability to maintain these homes, we see a requirement to make sure they live in safety and warmth, as well as to restore neighborhoods in general."

Timberlake Homes has renovated the basement bathroom to be wheelchair accessible, but there is still work to be done at the Callaham residence. Greater Morning Star and Christmas in April are raising money for a chairlift into the Callahams' basement, where Daniel will live, that will cost between $15,000 and $20,000.

In caring for her son, who remains in intensive physical therapy, Callaham is on leave without pay, relying on coworkers to donate their leave to keep her salary.

"I didn't know what to do," Callaham said. "I'm a single parent, and his father lives in North Carolina. ... His father has some insurance, but it already took its course, which is why they had to release him from the hospital."

But Callaham said she has also seen a great deal of hope from Daniel's physical therapy. Although doctors said he would likely never walk again, Daniel, who declined to be interviewed, has made drastic improvement during the past few months, growing strong enough to get from his chair to his bed without the help of equipment and recently regaining some feeling in his legs.

"Now he can kick his left leg out," she said. "Doctors were astonished that he could do that. At first they thought they were just spasms, but now they see that he can move that by himself. They still can't say that he'll walk again, but our belief is that by God he will."

Donations for the chairlift may be made to Greater Morning Star, who can be reached at 301-350-1772, or to Christmas in April at 301-868-0937.

Christmas in April will hold its annual golf tournament fundraiser, which it relies on for the majority of its funding, on Sept. 26. Call the organization or visit www.christmasinaprilpg.org.

ewagner@gazette.net