I have three daughters, aged 26, 20, and 17. The house they live in (with their mother, my ex wife) is a house that I bought for them, I paid off the mortgage and deeded the house to my ex wife and told her that I wanted the children to have a home that they would not have to worry about losing. That was 14 years ago. I did not want my ex to suffer due to the divorce so I gave her that house free and clear. My ex is a life long JW.
The house caught fire last Wednesday and the fire department had a terrible time getting the fire out, so they busted the place up pretty good. Between the fire and the fire department's demolition derby the house is in very bad shape. My ex did not have homeowner's insurance. Don't ask, it just makes me very angry.
Now, here is what those evil "worldly" people have done in response.
The Red Cross put my children and their mother up in a hotel room.
The high school where my youngest daughter goes to school gave her entire class permission to come to the house to help clean up debris. Her classmates all said they were going to go whether they had permission or not :).
The church that my oldest daughter goes to sent their youth ministry, 26 teenagers, to help clean up debris and help with demolition.
My middle daughter's boyfriend has taken off work and is working pretty much fulltime on the house. He brought a couple of his friends with him who also took off from work.
Home depot has donated a small amount of material and is trying to raise enough money to donate ALL the materials needed to completely renovate the house. We don't know yet if this is going to happen but they assigned a fire remediation counselor to my children and he is helping them talk to all sorts of agencies, groups, charities, etc, to get different types of help. He worked with the city so that they could get the house stabilized without needing a building permit. The roof was in danger of collapsing.
There has been a steady stream of volunteers from all over the place coming to help.
A contractor we found on Craig's list is at the house every day helping get the house to the point where it can be lived in so that Home Depot has time to assemble the help they are working on assembling. He is not doing this for free but he gave us such a low rate after he found out the situation that it might as well be free. The man is an expert in everything construction related, I hate to think what a real hourly rate for him would be.
EVERYONE who comes to the house is amazed at what my daughters are accomplishing (they are running the project themselves and doing a lot of the work) because of this outpouring of support. THe guy from Home Depot said he was totally amazed at what they got done over this past weekend.
I have been on the phone round the clock (I live 3 states away) organizing tools, equipment, people and other things that have to be paid for from my house in Mississippi (my kids are in Florida). I can't be there personally but I am helping run the project from here (I had to take off from work to do this). My resources are limited but my middle daughter's boyfriend and the contractor from craigslist are the most tight fisted people I have ever met so they are able to get things for a very reasonable amount of money and get a lot done with it. I cannot be there in person for several reasons, but I am working full time on this.
Everyone who hears about my chidlren's plight wants to help somehow and does to what degree they can.
I am hoping that my chlidren will get their house back. They have been working on it round the clock since the fire. I am very proud of them.