Stevens Point boy raises saves grandma’s house

STEVENS POINT, Wis. — Noah Lamaide, 12, paused and chuckled Monday, his hand tired from signing checks.

But it’s likely he didn’t really mind.

Noah of Stevens Point signed the more than a dozen checks over to Portage County Bank to save his grandmother’s home from foreclosure, the money raised through his charity, Noah’s Dream Catcher Network.

The bank will cancel the foreclosure sale scheduled for Feb. 15, and Janice Sparhawk, Noah’s grandmother, can start on a regular payment schedule.

“It made me feel good, like I’ve accomplished something,” Noah said. “I made my goal.”

Noah raised about $10,500.

The 72-year-old Stevens Point woman fell behind in 2010 paying on her mortgage, which she took out to remodel the house. It was difficult for her to work after she had eye surgery that year, she said. Portage County Bank worked with her the entire time, she said, but eventually she got behind enough to the point the house was in foreclosure.

Enter Noah. In January, Noah used his website to try to raise the $10,000 needed to save the house Sparhawk’s grandfather built and her mother was born in.

Jill Sparhawk Lamaide, Noah’s mother, said she saw on her phone last Wednesday morning that the last donation — from an anonymous donor of more than $2,000 — pushed Lamaide past their goal. She immediately woke her son to tell him the news.

“I can’t explain to you the joy that went through the house,” Sparhawk Lamaide said. “We finally made it.”

Sparhawk said she has a new budget to follow, and is well enough to start a part-time job.

Sparhawk said she had told Noah not to be disappointed if he didn’t earn enough to save her house. Both were pleasantly surprised that the charity raised enough to save the house.

“My outlook has totally been restored,” Sparhawk said.

Noah started the website in October 2010 to help others in his community. Donors receive a small keychain with a dream catcher, an object based on a small willow hoop that comes from Ojibwe culture. According to legend, a dream catcher protects people from negative dreams. Positive dreams slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person. The negative dreams get caught in the web and disappear with the sunrise.