Kendall’s Post Shooting Support Continued

On August 10th I encountered a moment in life I pray no on will ever have to. I was being robbed at gunpoint and I knew instantly the man had no intent to let me live. I made the choice to fight rather than be a number. I ended up getting shot 3 times one of which missed my femoral artery by mm’s but destroyed my femur, bundle branch, and iliac veins. One of the bullets entered my forearm, exited my elbow, and stopped in my humerus. This was the shot he managed as I fought with him and the third was a bad thigh graze.

Today I’m blessed to be alive but now I have months of recovery ahead and have completely lost any ability to earn an income and pay bills. I know most of you know me and know that the operational cost of the two men’s homes have been coming out of my pocket for many months now and every time it looks like things are going to turn around we lose several guys and we’re right back to where we started. To continue to carry on the mission of what we’ve done for the past 15 years, I’ve made the sacrifice of my income to keep the doors open and continue to fix and repair and update things that fall apart on a 100 year old house.

To those who don’t know me it may look like I have a business and should be doing good. that I have two properties that are equitable but the truth of it is I’ve struggled for a long time, and when I was earning an income, I could manage that struggle and make sacrifice to get the homes and myself by. Today I no longer have that option or ability to work and make the sacrifices I always have. It will solely be through the help of others, and their compassion and giving that gets myself and these men that count on these homes through this time. At this time by all standards of my contract for purchasing the business I’m in default, and technically a quit claim deed that I signed when I entered into the contract, could be filed and everything taken from me without notice. It is without doubt that only due to the sacrifice that I’ve made, my refusal to quit and give up, and the years of selflessness and giving to this home that the seller hasn’t filed the quit claim deed on both properties, and re-assumed ownership of the business.

It was just last September, that I found out the home was structurally, collapsing, and I put every penny that my mother, myself, and donations others made into the structure of the home. Today the project is still not completed but it’s structurally stable and returned back to functional, safe, and a livable state. I have continued to work on the projects needing the most attention over time as I could afford them and make the time to complete them. Today I can’t afford them and I don’t have the ability to complete them. The day I was shot I was starting to begin the siding on the side of the house that we had to completely gut and reframe from inside-out. Since we first started construction it has had nothing more than insulation, vapor barrier, and R-Tek on it. I was just able to buy enough siding on clearance to prepare that as fall and winter arrives.

At the same time that I was doing work to the outside of the home, I was continuing to work underneath the home to rebuild the part of the structure that wasn’t an immediate need before. The two days prior to the shooting I spent day and night, dragging bags of cement under the house through a hole in the floor and mixing them in barely enough space for a body to fit and pouring piers for the house to sit on as I replaced the floor joist one at a time and continued to repair the beams that bear the weight of the home.

It was just days before I began doing a lot of the major work to the home again that the front porch steps began to collapse, and shortly before that that the sidewalk had pretty much become front grass as it deteriorated. The people that built the sidewalk and the steps just put a small amount of cement over piles of gravel. After last winters, freeze and water getting into the cement, the sidewalk became completely destroyed, and the steps of the house began to collapse themselves as someone just made forms for steps on a pile of gravel. The cement had cracked on the steps and rainwater began to travel through them and washed out the foundation for the steps making them unsafe. I didn’t have the option to have a company come out to fix things. I had to buy the cement, mix it, pour it, and finish it. As well as I had to make all the forms for it myself.

For the past year I’ve done these things while continuing to work and try and take care of myself after just having had a neck surgery July 2022. It was January 2023 that I was hit by a hit-and-run driver that destroyed everything that was done in my neck surgery. I was scheduled just five days after the shooting to have my second neck surgery to return to a better quality of life. It was because of this I was in a race against time to finish the numerous projects that needed completed before I wouldn’t be able to do any work to the house again and was pretty well on schedule to be completed. At the pace I was going it looked like the day before my surgery on my neck, had August 10 not happened.

I know we live in a day where a lot of people ask for a hand out. The last nine years of my life have been dedicated to giving people a hand up. Even in the most difficult times in owning and operating these two homes that these men count on, I’ve never given up, I’ve never lost hope, and never quit giving of myself to the home, to my career, and to any reasonable request, anybody has asked of me. Unfortunately, through this horrific turn of events, I found myself in a position where I have no sacrifice that I can make, I have no ability to do the things I previously could, and the money won’t come in from employment to continue to keep the doors open and myself and the men that count on me to have a home.

This GoFundMe wasn’t started with any intention of wanting a hand out. When the decision was made to create this, it was done after very careful consideration and the deep heart felt desire to continue to do the work of helping these men that so many have given up on. Anyone could’ve easily tossed in the towel, had their belongings packed up and moved to a storage, stayed in a nursing home, and asked for help for their future, when leaving a nursing home. The Medicaid insurance I was placed on would have likely paid for long-term housing had a shows to give up. If that had been my choice, the homes, these men count on would have locked the doors, and today would no longer be here.

It’s not easy for any person that has went through something like I have recently to reach out and say I need help. To be honest to ask for help in this situation has probably been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done aside from what I’m going through. To wake up one morning and be an able-bodied provider that continued each day to take care of the task at hand and work towards making the future of others better, to laying in a hospital bed that night not knowing their future is devastating. Some of the choices I’ve had to make in the last few weeks, some of the emotions that I’ve went through in the turn of these events, and the position that I am in today I think is harder than anything I’ve been through in my life.

During the course of the events that took place, I laid on the ground and I had two thoughts. The first was today I live a life that I have no regrets. The second thought was if this is the way that I go home, it sucks, but I’m OK with it. That day I did some things that may have helped to save my life, but ultimately I had an Angel there with me. If God would’ve saw fit to call me home and that would’ve been my day to do so he would’ve done it then. I’m uncertain why I had to go through this or why it’s a part of my story now. What I do know, and believe is that whatever God‘s plans for me here are, I’m not finished. Ultimately, this is something that had to be a part of my story, but it was not my time to be called home.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you choose to reach out, keep me in your prayers, or donate to help make things better each of those are equally appreciated. There is far more to life than just money, and each day so many wake up and miss their purpose or their calling, and just earn to live. For many years now I’ve known a great part of my purpose in my life is to be that of helping others, whether through my career in the medical field or through keeping the doors of the men’s homes open. Each day Ive woke up I would’ve lived my life just the same way I have and being passionate enough about my career and helping others I would’ve done it for free every day. Unfortunately, at the end of the day it takes income to do all the things in between. Aside from income this process has taken the support of others being present, the outpouring of calls and messages, and the countless people that have kept me in their prayers. So no matter which way you can support and have chosen to they all serve a need without any one of them being greater than the other. Well, maybe the exception of prayer being greater. Again, thank you everybody for your time, and all each of you have done.

Update on August 22nd of this year I had my second surgery on my left removing a bullet that was causing a lot of pain. Which brought significant relief. It was followed up on September 20th with surgery on my leg removing two more bullets which brought even more relief. Unfortunately I was hit by a negligent driver on October 24th setting me back drastically in my recovery. Today marks my 10 years of continuous sobriety and me trying to figure out how I’m going to get my front tooth fixed in which my crown broke as I went to bed last night. I’m still working on appealing my disability, applying for my victims compensation all over again after changes making me eligible, and hopefully have an attorney that is going to take on a civil suit to help me recover some of what I’ve lost as a result of everything. This year has been the hardest year of my life in which I’ve about lost everything. Some of you may be looking for end of the year right offs for this upcoming tax season and if a donation helps you for that purpose I can now legally provide you a write for your donation. That is something I’ve been working on diligently behind the seems and have really made a formal public announcement. Any help is always sincerely appreciated and deeply heart felt.