Harvey Relief for Our Family
Donation protected
During the floods my husband was working around the clock as a volunteer firefighter serving our community, rescuing people and pets and keeping our flooded neighborhood safe. I was also volunteering and helping serve food, distributing water to those affected, answering phones and coordinating with our city to serve our community.
We drove past our home and business many times a day as water rose, knowing it had already ruined everything in our garage after the first day and powerless to stop it. Everytime we waded through knee deep water to go into the house and move more furniture upstairs or grab clean clothes and dry socks we left it well aware that our floor joists were soaking in contaminated waters because the wood was already damp inside.
We never stopped showing up to help during Harvey, the floods after, and even volunteered to organize recovery efforts as the water went down. Even as our sheet rock began to mold, my husband served food to our community and I went door to door signing people up for help gutting their own homes.
We were blessed with a great staff to help us maintain the animals who were boarded during evacuations in our kennel as water rose around it and made it inaccessible. The animals still had to eat and be watered and taken to a dry indoor place to relieve themselves. Rooms had to be cleaned and we had to pay our staff for their efforts so they could afford to evacuate as their own homes became inaccesible. Lucky Dog is a family business and our staff is our family. If we can't recover we all lose our livlihoods. We took animals out in boats as people returned from evacuations and if people lost every thing and could not pay for their boarding we did not charge them. They still had their furry family members even if everything else was gone. What could we do? We understood what was happening and the losses these people were suffering.
Now we are almost empty and we realise that our livlihood may not survive the long-term effects of this area wide flood. Grooming is returning slowly now that sewer is restored but who can afford a vacation or dog boarding when they can barely afford to replace their belongings and feed their pets?
We relied on Labor Day revenues to pay the $1040 mortgage on our business and $900 for our home. We needed it to pay the $971 in electric bills for the hot month of August already past due. October 1st we will owe twice as much as today.
We were flooded and our main source of income is now a huge financial burden and we have to decide if we can afford to keep the doors open. We never made enough to support a huge loss and now we have so much more expense as we repair our damage at home.
We will do all we can for as long as we can and we know everyone is hurting. We just need help keeping the doors open until our community bounces back.
How can we ask for help from a community sharing our struggle? We aren't asking for help from the struggling, if you are struggling please don't give to us, just pray for us, but if you can afford to help us in this difficult time I can assure you that we will not forget it and we will pay it forward when we are back on our feet.
Thank you for your help during this difficult time and for your prayers most of all not just for us but for everyone recovering from these terrible events.
Lauren, James, Emily, Michaela, and Baby James.
We drove past our home and business many times a day as water rose, knowing it had already ruined everything in our garage after the first day and powerless to stop it. Everytime we waded through knee deep water to go into the house and move more furniture upstairs or grab clean clothes and dry socks we left it well aware that our floor joists were soaking in contaminated waters because the wood was already damp inside.
We never stopped showing up to help during Harvey, the floods after, and even volunteered to organize recovery efforts as the water went down. Even as our sheet rock began to mold, my husband served food to our community and I went door to door signing people up for help gutting their own homes.
We were blessed with a great staff to help us maintain the animals who were boarded during evacuations in our kennel as water rose around it and made it inaccessible. The animals still had to eat and be watered and taken to a dry indoor place to relieve themselves. Rooms had to be cleaned and we had to pay our staff for their efforts so they could afford to evacuate as their own homes became inaccesible. Lucky Dog is a family business and our staff is our family. If we can't recover we all lose our livlihoods. We took animals out in boats as people returned from evacuations and if people lost every thing and could not pay for their boarding we did not charge them. They still had their furry family members even if everything else was gone. What could we do? We understood what was happening and the losses these people were suffering.
Now we are almost empty and we realise that our livlihood may not survive the long-term effects of this area wide flood. Grooming is returning slowly now that sewer is restored but who can afford a vacation or dog boarding when they can barely afford to replace their belongings and feed their pets?
We relied on Labor Day revenues to pay the $1040 mortgage on our business and $900 for our home. We needed it to pay the $971 in electric bills for the hot month of August already past due. October 1st we will owe twice as much as today.
We were flooded and our main source of income is now a huge financial burden and we have to decide if we can afford to keep the doors open. We never made enough to support a huge loss and now we have so much more expense as we repair our damage at home.
We will do all we can for as long as we can and we know everyone is hurting. We just need help keeping the doors open until our community bounces back.
How can we ask for help from a community sharing our struggle? We aren't asking for help from the struggling, if you are struggling please don't give to us, just pray for us, but if you can afford to help us in this difficult time I can assure you that we will not forget it and we will pay it forward when we are back on our feet.
Thank you for your help during this difficult time and for your prayers most of all not just for us but for everyone recovering from these terrible events.
Lauren, James, Emily, Michaela, and Baby James.
Organizer
Lauren LaCount
Organizer
Clute, TX
