Help Patty and Jeff Rebuild

Around 3am Monday morning, Patty and Jeff (Erin's parents) fled their house as fires hit their neighborhood. They left everything behind and dashed out the door with only the clothes on their back. Later that morning, their neighbor walked back and verified their biggest fear: their house and all their belongings were lost.

For those who know Patty and Jeff, they are some of the warmest and most selfless people I've met. For 30 years, Patty worked as both a school administrator and nurse at Guerneville Elementary School taking care of local kids. Jeff worked part time as a substitute teacher for the same school district. Meanwhile, they also watch over her late sister's son, Dusty (aka The Dustman), who has special needs (beyond cheering for the Giants). Patty recently retired this past June and was looking forward to a calmer life. Sadly, the fire had other plans.

Erin and I have taken them shopping for toiletries, basic clothing and a computer to give them a central command for filling out forms and other correspondence. However, we know that we and the insurance company will come up short replacing a house and a life's worth of belongings. As this is our first disaster, we are unsure how long it will take to get them back to normal. We estimate 6 to 12 months until things are settled.

Here's what we're hoping to find for them:

Near term (this week):
- $1,000 to rebuild clothing and daily living essentials
- Clothing (details below)
- Short-term places to stay (several leads, thank you!)
- Long-term rental in North Bay/SF area (around $2k/mo)

Long term:
- Furniture (pretty much everything)
- 1 guitar (for Jeff, who's an avid musician)
- Desktop computer

Thus far, everyone has been incredibly generous and I thought setting up this page would help facilitate everyone's generosity. We realize that thousands of families are in the same horrible circumstances right now and are not, by any means, hoping to take away from their situations. Our main goal is to take care of Patty and Jeff since they have taken care of us on so many occasions.

Erin and I will give the funds to Patty and Jeff by next weekend (along with ongoing support).

Thanks,
Dave (Patty and Jeff's son-in-law) and Erin (daughter)

update: Patty and Jeff have asked us to withdraw the funds for them for the interim period as they won’t be using the money until they have a long-term rental in the coming weeks. After that point they’ll use it to bridge the gap for replacing clothes, furniture and so forth after insurance pays out.