Have you ever lost it all?
I have a friend that went through something horrible yesterday. She sat in her house with two of her 8 kids, and watched as the bank of the creek in her yard got closer and closer to her home... until the rushing waters busted through her garage door and started pouring into her house. They moved as fast as they could to move the pets upstairs to higher ground. They got the cats and one pair of birds up there, but couldn't get to 3 other pairs in time. They packed a small bag of stuff, and their parrot, and hiked a mile in the muddy, slippery woods. All the while, carrying her two youngest children, the parrot, the bag, and her purse through the torrential rain. Finally, they got to her husband's car that was parked up the road, and headed to Jessica's mom's house, leaving their home behind, which had noflood insurance on it. She is a WRECK. (You can read the whole story here.)
She lives half way across the country from me, in Pennsylvania. So, physically, there is not a lot I can do to help her. But I did do this:
Last night, I started a facebook group aimed at helping her out. Quickly, the number of members surpassed 50... then 70... and as of the time this was posted, there were already 84 members. I realized that things were going to need to be much more organized, as people all across the country offered to set up donation sites and send money. So I started a blog called Help the Martins. If you live in PA, there is info on how to help locally. If you don't live hear here, I have info on how to help anyways. If you can so much as offer a well wish, prayer, positive thought, or words of encouragement, please follow the blog.
What you can do now:*Leave their family words of encouragement in theguestbook.*You can spread the word. If you have a blog, post, and ask people to follow this blog, and join the facebook group. If you are on ANY social network, PLEASE spread the word. The more people know about this, the more likely we will have enough help.*You can send gift cards by ordering them off of their Wal-Mart wish list. You can order either Wal-Mart gift cards, or Visa gift cards.*Visit the blog and donate money either directly to the family, or to the fundraising campaign, which will go towards shipping items from other donation centers, and people who have things to give but can't afford shipping.
But please don't just do nothing. Especially those of you with blogs. I don't care if you just copy this post and paste it on your own. Please just spread the word. If you do post about it, please put a link in the comments here. If you don't have a blog,share this post on EVERY social networking site and email list that you have. There is power in numbers.
Think about how you would feel if you lost it all.
