Jane Jacobsen’s husband and son were off on a motorcycle trip to Yellowstone National Park when, during Labor Day weekend, she got the idea to stuff her car full of goods for wildfire victims and drive them to Wenatchee.
She sent a few emails to friends to let them know she was collecting some things to load into her car. Then those friends called their friends, and so on, and by Thursday morning her driveway and porch were stacked with boxes of clothes and other items to help wildfire victims.
It would’ve been a short vacation trip, Jacobsen said.
“People responded much more generously than I thought,” she said, as she rolled another hand truck stacked with boxes into a rented truck already stuffed with furniture, clothes and other donation items.
Ginger Metcalf, who, with others, joined Jacobsen in getting donations and coordinating the effort, said they gathered an estimated 1,200 cubic feet of items. Jacobsen, Metcalf and the others have been collecting and packing goods for much of this week and spent Thursday afternoon loading the truck.
“People cleaned their closets over the holiday weekend, dug in their storage units, and I venture to say, there’s probably not an item that we’re missing here. We have everything from crayons to beds to two big sofas in here,” Metcalf said.
Metcalf said they’ve been working with the Red Cross and Dennis Rugg, the chapter executive for the Red Cross in Southwest Washington, to make sure all of the items go where they’re needed.
Rugg said the donated goods will go to Serve Wenatchee Valley, an area service organization, which will make the goods available to fire victims for free.
After gathering all of the goods, Metcalf said, the real challenge was finding a truck to get it all to Wenatchee.
“I sent out an email Tuesday, and by (Wednesday) morning, we had three trucks,” she said.
They soon had a rental truck big enough to block the street in front of Jacobsen’s home near Officers Row. Jacobsen and a friend will drive the truck to Wenatchee today.
“You just rely on who you know, and who they know,” Metcalf said. “They hear what it is that we’re doing, and they want to do as much as they can.”
“It’s such a reflection of what this community does, out of the good of its heart, for the less fortunate.”
