Many people watch the evening news and wonder if they can do something to help victims of natural disasters, but few of us actually take action.
Woody Faircloth, however, is not most people. When Woody saw a news story about the deadly Camp Fire in California back in 2018, he found a tangible way to help.
In the article, a fire victim who’d lost everything said he was grateful to have an RV to live in temporarily. Woody immediately started thinking, “What if more people could have an emergency RV?” Turning to his then 7-year-old daughter Luna, he asked what she thought about driving an RV from their home in Denver, Colorado, all the way to California to give the vehicle to a family in need.
Her response was one for the books! “Aw, Dad, God and Santa Claus are gonna be proud of us.”
Woody started a GoFundMe campaign and bought the first RV off Craigslist. The previous owner even lowered her price when she heard what he intended to do with it. Donations began to pour in, and soon other RV owners were offering up their vehicles to the cause. Emergency RV was born, and Woody and Luna have not stopped delivering shelter to fire victims since!
Woody and Luna, now 9, have made the 20-hour drive to and from California multiple times over the past few years, delivering an astounding 95 motorhomes to families displaced by forest fires. Many of these families are first responders who were battling the blazes elsewhere when their own homes were lost.
About 5 to 10 percent of the people who receive these RVs return them when they find permanent housing. The homes are then cleaned up and sent to a new family.
Firefighter George Wolley was one first responder who lost his house near Greenville, California. Receiving the gift of an RV made a huge difference in his life, enabling him to keep fighting the fires while knowing he had a safe place to sleep that night.
“Before I got that RV, I felt like I was a burden on everybody that helped me,” he said. “I slept a lot in tents and in my car. It gave me a place to go.”
Woody is certainly a man of action, not words! He saw the solution to a problem and found a way to make it work. We should all be more like Woody – and Luna, too!
There are still 100 families on the EmergencyRV waiting list! Share this story to raise awareness and funds for this life-changing initiative.
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