Gabe Warriner is a Pastor at River Valley Community Church and a bus driver with SD51 and has been working as a volunteer during the Grand Forks flood event response and recovery. He shared a letter he sent to Dan Ashman and AM Ford for their help during the flood and recovery.
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To the Editor:
Hopefully you will find it suitable to publish and give an acknowledgment of our deepest thanks to Dan Ashman and AM Ford for their amazing generosity.
They have truly demonstrated that they are a friend and community supporter not only of Trail but of the entire Kootenays. Grand Forks is so grateful for their support and loaned vehicles.
Dear Dan:
Today we loaded up six truck loads of donated Larch and Fir Firewood to be distributed to those impacted by the flood. That brings the number of truck loads of wood up to eight.
The first to receive three truckloads of Larch and Fir Firewood was a woman in South Ruckle. South Ruckle is one of the worst impacted areas in Grand Forks. There is a lot of work and a long way to go for these people to rebuild for the future. In the midst of the rebuilding and for many of these people refinancing, there is no money to pay for cords of wood to be delivered. There is no time to go and gather the wood for themselves. Three cords of firewood will take her deep into the winter, but we are not sure if it will see her through. It will go a long ways and by the time she is close to running out, hopefully funds will be available for her to purchase what she needs.
The second to receive three truckloads of Larch and Fir was young couple that gave birth to a Newborn daughter in the midst of the flood recovery. They have lost their home that they were tenants at. They now live in a travel trailer and are doing all they can and spending all their time and resources move their trailer to liveable space, to winterized it, and to prepare for the upcoming months of life in a travel trailer with a newborn child. They are also in the midst of making a small cabin ready for the winter. This is where the wood stove is. As of today they had no wood for their wood stove. Now, they have three very large loads of fir and larch, hot burning excellent wood.
The third to receive two truckloads of Larch and Fir was a senior man living in a trailer court. This year he was unable to go out and get wood. He lost is vehicles in the flood and had no means to get the wood. A neighbour noticed his lack of supply and reached out to us asking if we could help. Today we delivered two large loads of wood to him. With the extra that he had from last year, it should be enough to see him through the winter, or by the time he needs more, hopefully he will have the resources available to purchase what he needs.
I’m writing to you Dan and to AM Ford to thank you for your generosity. We could not have done so much without the use of the loaned trucks given by AM Ford to help these vulnerable flood impacted Grand Forks residents. I often can’t help but think that if more people were like Dan and more businesses like AM Ford, the world would be a much better place and right now Grand Forks would be so much farther ahead.
We’ve lost count of the tearful smiles, the big sighs of relief, the thankfulness, the warm hugs and firm handshakes we’ve received as we’ve been able to help so many people first with sandbags, than with flood contaminated content removal, than with donation supply, and now with firewood supply among so many other things.
Gabe Warriner
Grand Forks