FORKS — The “spirit of Christmas” was a reality on Christmas Eve when community members arrived unannounced at a home, bearing furniture, toys and furnishings for the family that was sleeping on the floor.
“Oh my goodness, it’s amazing,” said Susan Davis as volunteers moved beds, a washer and a dryer into her Forks mobile home Friday afternoon.
“It’s like every Christmas wish has been granted in every way.”
Davis and her four children — Charmaine, 14, Zachary, 6, Zion, 4, and Justice, 3 — moved into the home on Dec. 13 after four months of homelessness.
After their landlord last summer sold the three-bedroom, two-bath home in Sekiu where they lived, the Davises pitched a tent in the woods, then stayed in a shelter for two weeks before a concerned woman in Forks opened her home to them.
Home Fund recipients
The PDN’s Peninsula Home Fund helped provide the family with new sleeping bags and vouchers for laundry, showers and a motel.
This month they could finally move into a home of their own, but their belongings were limited.
Jan Rand, an employee of Bill and Kitty Sperry who own the Davis’ home, went there this week to take some door measurements, then returned to the office in tears.
“It was just heartbreaking, because they had no beds,” said Rand.
Rand told everyone about the situation, “and we all decided that we were going to do something,” said Michael Krause, director of operations for the Sperrys’ Northwest Office Network Inc.
Bill Sperry dispatched employees to Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles, using more than $1,000 contributed by the Sperrys, Krause and Rand, to buy two sets of new bunk beds, a queen-size bed, mattresses, the washer and dryer, dishes and other items, said Krause.