Naples Daily News Weekend Digest Miss something this week? Catch up on a Few of our big stories in this quick digest

U.S. Marine and his family get free home in Estero neighborhood Corkscrew Shores

For Geoffrey and Lara Heath, milestones have come with little fanfare.

The couple married "in some guy's living room" a few years after they met in high school.

The next day, Geoffrey Heath left to fulfill his duties as a U.S. Marine.

When their first child, Logan, was born in the United States, Geoffrey Heath was serving in Iraq.

Years later, Geoffrey Heath's military career ended in Afghanistan. An explosion shattered his body.

The hero returned in need of care.

Jewish Family and Community Services receive grant for case management

Judy Opoku made the right phone call before she moved to Naples in November.

Disabled from a grueling fight with cancer which sometimes keeps her homebound, her social worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, gave her a list of case management companies in Naples.

One was highlighted: The Jewish Family and Community Services of Southwest Florida, JFCS.

Opoku didn't want for anything after the move and connecting with JFCS. Besides traditional home health support, the organization provides counseling and food assistance. It even arranged for her to receive a better mattress to alleviate back pain.

"Everybody I have dealt with in this company is wonderful," Opoku, 61, said. "If I need something, boom, boom, boom."

The nonprofit and nonsectarian group incorporated on its own in 2011, after being a division of the Jewish Federation of Collier County. The change was made to broaden outreach and serve a more diverse population, said Jaclynn Faffer, president and chief executive officer since 2010.

Swamp buggies: Racer Tyler Johns of Naples loses part of arm in airboat accident

Tyler Johns hails from one of the biggest families in a sport invented in his hometown of Naples. Much of his adult life has been spent inside a swamp buggy.

He and his parents are staples of the "Mile-o-Mud" racetrack at Florida Sports Park in East Naples. Johns finished second in the buggy points standing this year. The only person better was his own mother, Lorrie, who won the season title.

All that could be over. Johns' racing career might have been snatched away from him late Saturday by an airboat accident that severed part of his left arm.

As he recovers in a Miami-area hospital, where he'll need at least two more surgeries on the arm, Johns isn't thinking about swamp buggies. And the 32-year-old Naples native is in surprisingly good spirits for someone whose dream job might be over.

"We're all just happy he's here," said Samantha Johns, Tyler's wife. "So is he. For somebody sitting there in this situation, he's been incredible."

Fifth Avenue South buildings demolished, as development plans at site uncertain

Crews began demolition on local developer Phil McCabe's old building on the 400 block of Fifth Avenue South on Wednesday, even as the building's future, and the future of other commercial developments in the area, remains in flux because of a pending lawsuit.

Christopher Shucart, the developer who won city approval for a three-story project on 9th Street South that is similar to McCabe's, said he is changing his plans after neighbors argued in the lawsuit that McCabe's building concept doesn't adhere to the Naples charter.

And another builder who wants to redevelop a property on Fifth Avenue is planning a three-story commercial building that doesn't deviate from charter limits on building height. Neighbors have argued in court that the charter limits are absolute.

The question of whether the Naples City Council is properly enforcing the charter was brought to court in December when Bob Martin and Joan Fiore, two downtown property owners, sued the city and McCabe, claiming the council shouldn't have approved McCabe's plans to tear down his old building at 465 5th Ave. S. and put up a three-story building with underground parking.

The underground parking garage plus the three stories above ground make a four-story building, the lawsuit claims, violating a provision of the charter that restricts all commercial buildings to three floors. McCabe and the city argue the charter doesn't clearly prohibit McCabe's building design.

East Naples resident uses couponing to help stock shelves at St. Matt’s House

Grocery bills are no match for Daphne Tull.

The East Naples resident buys hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars worth of groceries and whittles the bill down to almost nothing.

She is a coupon queen, a savings maven.

But she doesn't clip, print and stack for herself. Tull has volunteered for St. Matthew's House for about five years and donates to their food pantry by buying canned goods, boxed foods and toiletries for cheap by using coupons and shopping grocery store sales.

"Doing this gets me up in the morning," Tull said. "It charges me up. It's become my passion."

Tull's first grocery run for St. Matthew's House about five years ago cost $1,902.35 but came out to $287.71 with her coupons. She collected the money in a big orange piggy bank she keeps on her kitchen counter.

"I get excited about couponing and what you can do with so little," she said. "We use spare change. What a difference you can make using the spare change you never miss."

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