Mission Accomplished :)

As you know Adam & Bruce made it safe n sound from Toms River. They were met by the friendliest, appreciative, kind, caring people ever. So, to finish this blog up I am just going to post the picks and videos that made all his happen!

Here is the video clip from Fox6 and the Patch article:

 Wind Lake Family Heads to New Jersey

Mount Pleasant Patch

Bruce & Adam left on Wednesday,  and we had a lot to do before 7pm. Jason Caira brought over the last of the donations from the Sumers and South Shore Fire Departments.

 

So he loaded up his wife, Christy, the twins and packed bags and boxes into his van until you could hardly see the girls.

Sorting and more sorting

When Adam came over he and Bruce realized that the trailer  had to be repacked. We had put too much weight in the front of it.

Unload & Repack

After a couple of hours and lots of help, everything was ready to go.

Look what we all have done! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!

And They Are Off

 They drove until 2:30am Thursday morning and stayed at a "Flea Bag" hotel. I think it was a Super 8 or something like that. When they got there it the women who ran the hotel gave them a 10% discount when she heard what they were doing. She was also concerned about them having enough room to park the truck and trailer.

Looked like this when they got there and in the morning when they left :)

They got to New Jersey on Thanksgiving day and spent the night about 2 hours outside of Toms River. It was important to let the people of the community have Thanksgiving with their family and friends.

They arrived at the school around 11am on Friday.

They were met by 20+ happy, enthusiastic, caring,

grateful people. They got to meet Jemma in person, after many phone calls and planning.

Jemma

 

 

Time too move it into the school now.

 There was one gentleman who got so excited that we brought him a hammer & crow bar. He said he's been looking all over for them. :) After they got the truck unloaded they moved everything into the school. For the next couple of days people will come there and get what they need. It will all be distributed  in a couple of day.

 

With everything where it was suppose to be and all their work was done, it was time to say good bye.

 

Time too head back home.

 

 This is the youtube link Bruce was talking about

http://TsUgfir

 

Bruce and Adam got home Saturday night around 7:30pm. It was a long, warm, humbling, trip.

All total you donated almost 9,000 pounds off goodies. They traveled almost 2,000 miles, paid $148.00 in tolls, $712.00 in fuel. (which was donated)

In the 3 weeks it took us to put this together, we have met so many wonderful & generous people and there are no words that can express out gratitude. Together we all made dreams come true and laughed harder then ever. Many of you called on your co-workers and you all came together for one great feeling. For some of you it was your families or just something inside of you, that you needed to do. Whatever the reason we came together and changed lives.... and that was my dream. 

Thank-you

Thank-you

Thank-you

Blessings and Happy Holidays 

Day 2 Happy Thanksgiving

Bruce & Adam got 1 hr. outside of Toms River, NJ. A small town called Bordentown Township.They stopped for the day, they didn't want to bother anyone on Thanksgiving.
 

Bruce spoke to Jemma today, the school teach from Toms River. He said, "you wouldn't believe how appreciative they are."  There will be about 20 people available tomorrow to help unload the trailer. Some of the residents will be there to select things right away. Bruce and Adam have very strict instructions to get as many pics and videos as possible. :)

Kudos to all of you who helped with this wonderful journey. Tomorrow is the day that we touch the lives of many, just like our lives have been touched by so many.

Breakfast, courtesy of Shannon

Thanksgiving Dinner

Bored :)

Break Time

I hope you all had the best Thanksgiving ever! I know we did.

It All Started,.,,,,

It all started in Adams garage on Halloween. There were the four of us standing around eating  chili and talking about how bad we felt about the people on the East Coast. 

Halloween Chili Drump

Belly is full, time to go.

Trick or Treat

We kept running ideas around and them said "Lets just do it". So the planning started. We made a flyer and some posters, took them to a few of our local businesses. Put an event on facebook, sent out Tweets and people started to get involved. We had the trailer and the truck to get out there, we just needed donations.

We set up donation dated, times and places. And things started to come in. 

Loaded van from Raymond School

 It was so wonderful to see strangers come and meet us and drop off donations, just because they wanted to help. Thank you all!
 

1st Week

1st week

We were so excited and grateful for all of these things. We couldn't believe it. Every time we would walk into our garage we got goose bumps. It was so exciting to think this is really going to happen.

Donation barrels were put at the Day Care, Meda-Care Ambulance had a fund raiser and donations, people put up signs at there work..... It was blowing up by week 2! Our very dear friend Jason Caira, got the Town of Somers and South Shore Fire Dept. involved. Both areas were so giving......and that's putting it lightly. He contacted Mt. Pleasant Patch and  Heather Asiyanbi
She wrote a great piece about what we were doing. Mt. Pleasant Patch

We soon realized that the trailer we had was not going to work. We needed more room...!!  We made 2 phone calls. The first to Uhaul Trailers and they told us they don't budge on the price and they don't donate.  The second call was to Tom's Trailers. Adam told Tom what we were doing and that all costs were coming out of our pockets. Asked him if he would be able to cut us a deal. Tom told us to come in and he would take care of us.

Last Friday (11/16)  Bruce and I went to pick up the trailer. We met Tom and Marge. Bruce filled out the paperwork and gave it back to Marge. When she handed him his copy of the receipt it said "NO CHARGE". Well needless to say we both had tears in our eyes and were so grateful. These two wonderful people had just donated a 20x8x8 foot trailer for us to take out to Toms River, NJ and back.

Let's fill this baby up!

Saturday Bruce and I went to Green Bay for a party. I had called my family there 2 days prior and told them what we were doing. The out poor was FANTASTIC. We came home with my Expedition filled. No room for anything more. It is so amazing. All we keep saying is WOW. 

Week 2, we were speechless. Things just happen, when they are meant to be. Up until this time we didn't have a destination, we just knew we would get there and it would happen. Bruce got a phone call from a women by the name of Shannon Courville Heit. She introduced herself and told Bruce she may be able to help us. Shannon's husband had gotten an email of our flyer. (our flyer made it to Harley :) to make a long story short, Shannon had been collecting items to send out east for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. She was raising money through a bake sale for shipping costs (shipping is outrageous). Shannon had been doing all the baking with a friend. The bake sales where held at Eisenhower School in Wauwatosa.

Shannon became our Earth Angel. She had a contact in Toms River, NJ. A school teacher by the name of Jemma. Shannon gave Jemma Bruce's contact info and NOW we had a destination!  The universe moved people, places and things to make it all fall into place. 7 of the teachers that worked with Jemma lost everything and were living in the shelter. More on that later.

As you can see week 2 was very exciting. Our garage was over flowing with donations. We had to move the Harley's out to make room for everything. So off to storage they went. 

Garage with both Harley's

 

Things are getting tight.

 

I would leave for work in the morning and there would be bags of donations on our front porch. Just unbelievable.

By week 3 the garage was full!! Time to call in the troops. We called the family and on Friday night (11/16) they all showed up at 4pm. Even a neighbor girl came and helped! Most of them hadn't seen any of it and wow were they surprised. A few watery eyes and goose bumps, then we got busy. 

Bags and boxes everywhere

We have our work cut out for us

We even had the teenagers helping on a Friday night.

Wondering if we are going to be able to fill this big trailer

Sort everything to make it easier for everyone in Toms River

1/3 of the way full :)

We had lots of fun and laughs

 

 

We also had 7 of the best kids, ranging from age 5-8

They still love the cardboard :)

A family get together wouldn't be right with out food.

7 little Earth Angels <3

Working together, we got everything sorted, boxed up and marked. It got all packed in trailer  ready to go. 6 more days.  :)

We found out on Tuesday (11/21) that Jason had called the new networks. One had responded! Justin Williams of Fox6 wanted to come out to the house to interview us and do a story...........
Bruce and I both left work early (so thankful for the job we have and the company we work for). Bruce called some family so we could do some more packing (garage was getting full again). Justin showed up at 1:30 and did a nice segment on Hurricane Sandy Relief.

Click on the link below and watch the news footage

 Wind Lake family heads to NJ to distribute donations to Sandy victims

Tuesday evening Bruce & Adam went to Somers & South Shore to pick up their donations and came back with 2 pick-up trucks FULL. WOW. The generosity is so overwhelming. It is time to start to take care of each other and I think we are all seeing and feeling that. People helping people, what a great feeling. 

By Tuesday night, the trailer we didn't know if we could fill, looked like this.

Almost full!

Wednesday Jason called and said he had more donations from Somers and South Shore. He brought them out to the house. His van was FULL. There was 2 ToysRus bags that 2-5 y/o donated. They dumped out their piggy banks and went shopping for the kids in NJ and picked everything out on their own.

We also had several other friends drop off donations from work and some from their family. 

So many wonderful stories and so many wonderful, warm, caring people. 

Last of the sorting and packing

  

Well that trailer that looked like we would never fill........

It's full! Front to back, top to bottom.

 I am so proud of everything we have all accomplished. Friends, families, co-workers, strangers, businesses .... we all came together and look what we did! :)

With the trailer full, it's time to start the rest of the journey. 

Final Truck Inspection 

Off they go

Bruce & Adam left about 7:30pm and drove until 2:30am. They made it to Elyria, OH. When they checked in and the clerk heard what they were doing they got a discount at the hotel. Even when they stopped for fuel the clerk there donated 2 rolls of paper towel... Life is good.


 Don't forget to leave Bruce & Adam some comments.

 Happy Thanksgiving