From The Press of Atlantic City — A seventh-grade Rittenberg School student will be honored today when work begins on a new home for a severely-wounded Iraq War veteran.

A pencil and crayon drawing by Angelica Andujar was chosen to be the Christmas card for the Atlantic City-based law firm Cooper Levenson. This was part of a contest the law firm held to help demonstrate its commitment to the community, the firm’s marketing director Donna Vecere said.

Vecere said inside each card was a request for donations to Homes For Our Troops, a nonprofit organization that helps raise the money severely wounded servicemen and women need to build a new home or adapt an existing home for handicapped accessibility.

The first New Jersey veteran to be helped by the donations since the contest was held, Vecere said, will be Cpl. Visnu Gonzalez. Gonzalez’s spinal cord was severed by a sniper’s bullet in Iraq, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

When ground is broken today on a new home for Gonzalez in Hillsdale, Bergen County, Andujar will be there with her family and members of her school’s staff.

Andujar was also presented with a gift card and a framed version of her winning design in December by Kenneth J. Calemmo Jr., the chief operating officer of Cooper Levenson.

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