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JACKSONVILLE, N.C. – A groundbreaking for a special home was held in Jacksonville Wednesday morning.

It was just a few weeks ago when the Gizzarelli family found out they were in the running for a mortgage free home. Operation Finally Home wanted to get to know the family better and that's when the Vincent Gizzarelli thought this could be a miracle in the works.

"They wanted to do an interview with us and let us know that we were basically in the running for the house and it just blew my mind,” said Gizzarelli. “I couldn't believe it. I didn't think it was real."

Home builder Martin Aragona wanted to build a free home for a wounded veteran in need and he said found many deserving vets.

"What separated Vince and Jamie was that at a time of great need themselves, physical need and economic need, they reached out to help these three young boys,” said Aragona.

They became legal guardians for three young boys in addition to raising their two teenagers.

Jamie Gizzarelli says receiving this house Operation Finally Home hasn't sunken in yet.

"It's going to be amazing and the way I feel about it, it really hasn't hit me yet,” she said. “Not until you open that door."

The family's new home will be a cabin designed by Log Homes of America and it will be on a lot adjacent to a creek that feeds into the New River.

Vincent Gizzarelli is a retired Staff Sergeant with the Marines who was injured by an IED blast in Iraq. He says the American dream is coming true for his family.

"It'd been a dream for my wife and I to own our own home and get out of the rut we'd been in,” said Gizzarelli. “We thought about what its going to be like for the kids in the future. This is always going to be here. This is always going to be ours. When we're dead and gone, it's going to be the kids."

Operation Finally Home has built 13 homes with 14 more on the way but the Gizzarelli home is the first to be built in North Carolina.