My Brother, Tom Ross

My name is Patricia Ross and I am from the San Francisco Bay Area. On October 9th at 2:30 am,  my brother, Tom Ross, was awakened by his neighbor to a raging fire, and the immediate need to evacuate. On October 13, it was confirmed that he, like countless other residents of the North Bay, had lost his home and all of his belongings to the terrible wildfires that continue to devastate the region.

I have never been in the position to set up a fundraising campaign for anyone before. And asking for help goes against my natural grain. In addition, I am fairly certain I'm going to be in big trouble with my brother when he finds out I did it!  So maybe don't tell him, ok?  Thanks :)

Tom's place of work fortunately survived, so within a week or two, he will be back to work. He has good friends and family members with whom he will be staying for varying lengths of time until he gets settled somewhere else. I think the main reason I feel compelled to set up this page is that a good, strong person with a long history of generosity has just lost everything except his sense of humor, and many people want to help him move forward.

The immediate need I would say is housing. I cannot even fathom how the Bay Area is going to accommodate the tens of thousands of people from the region who now have no place to live. My goal is to generate an amount of money that will get my brother a first and last  month's deposit towards a new place to live, and maybe make some strides toward a new start. Any funds donated here will go strictly to Tom Ross to help him get settled in a new place to live.

Tom made it out of his home in minutes. He has his car, his phone, a few clothes, and one of his three fiddles. He left behind a lifetime's worth of a carefully curated collection of classical music,  a similarly vast library of trad music, a computer, and an impressive collection of art, both his own (Tom is a talented painter) and pieces of fine art by Sonoma artists.

The majority of his belongings are irreplacable, and while he is entitled to lament their loss, this is not the kind of person he is. In the week that has passed, I have observed a person who is calm, reflective, sensitive to the overwhelming loss all around in his community, and very much aware of how much worse it could have been. 

If you know me at all, and if I like you enough, I will have introduced you to my brother Tom. If he comes to your house, he will have brought you a top shelf bottle of wine for your table. If you are lucky enough that he brings you a gift, it will be an absolutely perfect and lovely gift that you didn't even think of, but he spotted it and thought of you, and he was right.  

Thank you in advance for any contributions, they will not be forgotten.