The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I can only do what I can do, but I’m willing to do it”
The spirit of giving that Crested Buttians so proudly put on display when local families need a hand is going on the road, reaching out with food, fuel, and willing hands to the people left coping along the New Jersey coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. For local businessman Kevin Freeman, it’s just something that needs to be done.
“God really put it on my heart to go over there and lend a helping hand. I believe in doing unto others as you would have them do unto you and I just felt like they needed some help,” Freeman says. “I don’t have any family there, but I felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing.”
With the desire to do what he can, Freeman, of the Greenhouse Landscape and Nursery, enlisted the help of two of his employees, who are volunteering their time along with Peter Maxwell, owner of Maxwell’s Steakhouse, who is taking his catering truck to provide food for anyone who needs it. The four local men hit the road Wednesday afternoon.
Freeman called on a nationwide network of friends, securing food from the owner of a food distribution company in Louisiana who has a house in town, and he scheduled heavy equipment to meet them in Beachwood, N.J., not far from the now-famous scenes of Seaside Heights, where a roller coaster is slumped over in the Atlantic.
“I’m going to have generators and a lot of fuel. I’d like to carry close to 800 gallons of fuel so if I drive down the road and see somebody who needs fuel I can have it, or if somebody needs fuel for their generator I can fill those up,” he says.
With a plan, Freeman just needed a place to go. He called Earle and Debbie O’Hagan, who once lived in Crested Butte, and asked how things were in Beachwood, NJ.
“He said his home was okay but his neighbors’ homes have five feet of water in the basements and a lot of them are elderly people in that community,” Freeman says. “He said nobody was there helping five days after it happened and he wondered where everybody was. I said ‘Earle, I’m on my way.’”
After a tornado ravaged Greensburg, Kansas in 2007, Freeman gathered donated heavy equipment and spent two weeks cleaning up and helping where he could. He found the best place to find people to help was on a doorstep, talking with the victims face to face.
“In Greensburg it was pretty simple to go door to door and ask people, and the needs were extreme. You find out that you can help a lot of people in just one neighborhood who might be needing a lot of help and might otherwise be the ones to get the help last,” Freeman says. “I’m just going to lend a helping hand and I feel like there’s a lot of people in the world today who don’t really take advantage of the opportunity to help people. They just kind of sit back and watch and I’m just not one of those guys who can sit back and watch. I’ve got to get out there and help if I don’t have anything going on.”
While the calling to help was clear, the costs of mounting the relief effort exceeded what Freeman could afford alone. Just taking two vehicles to Louisiana to pick up food, to New Jersey and home again would cost $5,000. And as the needs mounted, he saw members of the community fall in with him.
True Value donated gas cans, Cisco donated two pallets of drinking water, Crested Butte Rental offered pumps and fans to help people reclaim their homes from the flood. Davin Sjoberg, owner of Teocalli Tamale, offered as many $100 gift certificates as Freeman could use and they’re going for $75 apiece, with all the proceeds going to offset the costs of the trip. “The Crested Butte community as a whole is really stepping up, as they always do,” he says.
Since the group of volunteers is already heading to New Jersey by the time you read this, donations of usable goods won’t do them much good. However, Freeman hopes to raise $10,000 to compensate and feed the volunteers who were willing to take time away from their lives to help him, as well as for fuel. Money donations are still being collected from those interested in helping.
Oh Be Joyful Church is collecting tax-deductible donations on Freeman’s behalf. Checks can be written out to Oh Be Joyful and sent to P.O. Box 175, Crested Butte, CO 81224. Write New Jersey Help in the memo line.
