Window Cleaner Spreads the Word

A couple with 12 handicapped kids get help from friends when the Rantzes paid a family friend $3,400 to renovate their main-floor bathroom so it could be handicap-accessible for Sarah and the children. It was a much-needed project for which they had been saving for months.
The hired hand -- an Allegan County man in his 30s whom the Rantzes took into their home when he was in high school -- gutted their bathroom, took the money and skipped town.

A few days back, Rantz mentioned his bathroom predicament to Harold Garnaat (pictured left), owner of Garnaat's Window Cleaning. Garnaat spread the word. Other members of the Kalamazoo Builders Association -- led by builders Ken Klok and Bruce DeHaan -- visited the home and decided to rebuild the bathroom.They began work Friday.

The house sits on a corner lot, tucked into a neighborhood where industry and families are down-the-block. Within the home, a constant vigil commences over severely handicapped children. The entryway has been transformed into a small bathing area for the smallest of Wayne and Sarah Rantz' adopted dozen, who range in age from 5 to 18.
Six of the children are blind, others paralyzed. Cerebral palsy and fetal-alcohol syndrome afflict more than one. Despite their acts of goodness, Wayne and Sarah Rantz have learned that misfortune cannot always be kept at bay. A couple who have devoted their entire married lives to uncommon selflessness have been kicked with circumstances both cruel and devastating.
Sarah Rantz, 57, is in the final stages of the most serious strain of Parkinson's Disease, referred to as Parkinson's Plus. Her battle has been going on for years. On Tuesday, she was hospitalized with what initially appeared to be a stroke.

To donate to a fund to defray the costs of rebuilding the gutted bathroom of Wayne and Sarah Rantz and their 12 children, send a check, payable to Wayne Rantz, to: The Rantz Bathroom Fund c/o Ken Klok, 5565 Linda Lane, Kalamazoo, 49004. Place "Bathroom Fund" in the memo field.