A few years ago, my wife Cher was diagnosed with cancer, and I took a year off to care for her. To make a difficult time even harder, our credit cards were compromised while we were staying at the Tri-Cities Cancer Center in Kennewick, WA. We didn’t even have enough money to get home to retrieve the replacement cards the bank had sent us.
I posted on our Facebook page that it was “just another adventure.” Shortly after, a woman named Heidi sent me a private message saying she wanted to visit us. She lived less than ten miles away in West Richland. I had never met her before, but she came down, spent about an hour and a half with us, and before she left, this single mother—who was struggling to make ends meet herself—gave us $300 to help us get by.
During our conversation, Heidi mentioned that she wanted to fix up her vintage trailer so she could use it for tea parties. Once Cher regained her health, I brought Heidi’s 1967 Red Dale to my shop. I felt compelled to do more than a simple “fix-up” for the good Samaritan who had come to our rescue in our time of need—Heidi’s little trailer deserved a full restoration.
She paid me $3,500 to “fix up” her trailer, and she was able to watch the progress until it was time to start on the exterior. From that point on, she didn’t see anything until the big unveiling.
I had invested quite a bit of my own money into the project, but after all she had done for us, this was my way of paying it forward. Heidi never paid more than the $3,500 she originally gave me, and today her fully restored trailer is worth about $14,000.
It was truly a labor of love, and we were thrilled to present it to her at the Patriot Show and Shine in Richland, WA.
