Asked to Watch House, Pal Makes $70K in Renovations

Marine Sgt. Jacinto Bernardo asked a buddy to keep an eye on the fixer-upper he bought in Suisun City, Calif., back in January as he shipped out for his last deployment before retirement. When Bernardo and his wife got back to the US from Japan, they discovered that Jeremy Epperson had done much more than watch the house, reports ABC News. He raised $70,000 in donations as part of a new group he's calling Homecoming Heroes, then used the money to renovate the home from top to bottom. "Twenty one years in the Marine Corps, retiring, you don't deserve to come back to a house where you have to spend a lot of your savings and time fixing it up," Epperson explains. A stunned Bernardo says he was hoping only for an In-N-Out burger. (More uplifting news stories.)