Help Get Tricia into her new home

Hi. My name is Sandra Garrett. I am working to help my friend Tricia Pilkington, get moved into a trailer and out of the dangerous home she has been trying to keep up since her husband, Arthur died.

The short version of the story is that, almost 2 years ago, a local church group took Tricia on as a mission, promising to provide her with a trailer that would be ready for her to move into by August of 2020. While the trailer was placed on her property, a year after that promised date and she is still unable to live in the trailer. It has not been plumbed. The electrical service has not been switched from her old house to the trailer. They haven’t even put steps up to the front door. So she has, essentially, two uninhabitable homes on her property. The folks who put the trailer there have not done anything since it was brought to the property in February. They wanted to run electrical from the old house to the trailer. But the electrical panel in the house is dilapidated, with exposed wiring near her only heat source, a wood-fired stove. They want to run plumbing from the old house to the trailer to save the expense of digging a new septic field. But they have not done anything in months. It’s horrifying seeing Tricia living like this, especially after the promise of help that was made almost two years ago. She cannot be expected to live another winter in these conditions.

These are the things needed to get Tricia moved into her trailer and out of her unsafe and rapidly deteriorating house:

Install a 4x4 pole for the electrical service at @ $100.

Switch electrical service to the trailer at $300.

Install steps at @ $100

Dig a new septic field at @ $2000

Put an electric stove in the trailer. I have been holding the stove for her in my garage since February of 2020, along with a chest freezer and some storage cabinets.

Get a small window air conditioner for the trailer at @ $250.

Tricia is a wonderful, resourceful, generous and kind person, a talented artist and musician. She is currently dealing with a lung infection that requires daily treatments, due to the unhealthy air quality in her current home. She spends as much time as she can outside or in the trailer, which currently has an extension cord running to it to provide lights. She is 66 years old and has worked hard to try and keep her place up after her husband died suddenly 6 years ago. She needs more help than she has been getting from this local church group. I am asking for donations from my friends, and those who know Tricia from her days as our nursery supervisor at First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, where she was much loved.

I cannot bear to see her living like this, being promised help and then ignored for so long. She is so creative, and so resourceful, but she needs help. In recent years she built her own solar oven when her stove broke down. She built her own solar shower when a pipe burst. She has created wonderful playhouses for the children at FPC, and has shared her creativity with them, teaching them how to sculpt, paint, make jewelry, and art.

Thank you for any donations you can provide to help her get into this trailer that was generously donated.