Workers deliver widower’s new home
“Happy man, very, very happy, it makes me feel good,” Deadwood, Texas, resident Edward Laird said
PANOLA COUNTY, Texas (KSLA) — An East Texas man is eternally grateful for the efforts, donations and love of total strangers.
Edward Laird’s new mobile home arrived Thursday, June 24, three months after a tornado took the life of his wife and destroyed home in the Panola County community of Deadwood.
Leading the charge to help the widower was the Shreveport Volunteer Network. People throughout the Carthage, Texas, area and elsewhere had his back.
More than $19,000 was raised to buy him a new mobile home.
Laird calls it a blessing.
With the loss of his wife, he has been fighting depression.
Now through the help of the community he has a new home.
“Happy man, very, very happy, it makes me feel good,” Laird said.
He told KSLA News 12′s Kenley Hargett that the 14-by-80-foot mobile home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms is a gift from God. He now can move out of what remains of the trailer that only brings back memories he wants to forget.
Keith Bryant, co-founder of the Shreveport Volunteer Network, has been supporting Laird since that tragic night in late March. Over the past three months, the two have developed a close relationship.
“I think it’s absolutely amazing,” Bryant said. “It’s been hard, it’s been emotional. And here it is in its true glory.”
Laird said he has overcome so much in the past three months that now he wants to serve as a reminder to everyone to never give up home.
“God’s here. He don’t ever leave us; we always leave Him. All you have to do is ‘Lord, help me’ and he’s there.”
Laird also told Hargett that he’s planning a housewarming party and that, again, he is thankful for everyone supporting and helping him.”
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