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The Utah State Veterans Home won $150,000 — second place — in a Home Depot Foundation contest that ended over the weekend.
The money will allow the home to increase privacy for the 81 veterans and veterans' spouses who live there, said Terry Schow, executive director of the Utah Department of Veterans Affairs.
Walls three-quarters of the way to the ceiling will replace curtains between the veterans' beds, Schow said. Duct work prevents construction of complete walls, he said.
Supporters of the home, which is on the campus of the Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Health Care System on the east bench, cast enough votes via Facebook since March 1 to put the home in second place.
The Veterans Guest House in Reno, Nev., won the first-place prize of $250,000 in the foundation's Aprons in Action contest. LifeBuilders of Detroit was in third place and won $100,000.
Each of the 11 competing projects had already won monthly Aprons in Action contests over the past year.
The Utah State Veterans Home won the November contest worth $25,000, which will go toward creating a nature path along Red Butte Creek. The stream flows next to the home and can provide residents a quiet place to enjoy nature.
The home opened in May 1998. Utah has since built the George E. Wahlen Ogden Veterans Home and has broken ground on two more — one in the southern Utah community of Ivins and the other in Payson.