The Emporia Gazette

February 14, 2012

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Jennifer Swartz calls it paying forward.

She and her fiancé, Jesse Watts, were on their way home this weekend when they saw a man, a woman, two children and a small dog standing by a minivan with a sign asking for help from the public.

The couple stopped to ask what the family needed, then went back to their apartment to bag up whatever they could spare.

They took four sacks to the family in need, before returning to their own almost-empty, two-bedroom apartment.

The couple knows first-hand what it is like to be left with nothing. It was difficult enough when Watts’ employer closed the business last fall and left him unemployed. Last week, everything they owned, except the clothing they were wearing, was lost when fire consumed their home.

“Pay it forward, that’s what we’re doing,” Swartz said of their act of sharing. “I never did get their story. They didn’t volunteer it, I didn’t ask.”

The couple said that area residents, aid agencies and Logan Avenue School staff and parents already had begun to help get them back on their feet in the days since the fire on Jan. 11. The help included numerous bags of clothing and hygiene products, in a supply plentiful enough to share with a family of strangers.

“We had a lot of extras,” Swartz said.

On Sunday, the couple and three of the six children were settling into an apartment, after spending three nights in a motel room provided by the Red Cross.

Swartz has three daughters — Skylar Swartz, who turned 4 on Dec. 27; Lesley Swartz, 7, and Alyssa Swartz, 8.

Watts also has three children — Shaelin Watts, 9; Austin Watts, 8; and Korie Watts, 7 — and shares custody of them with their mother, who lives in Madison.

While they unloaded sacks for the needy family, Watts watched what he and Swartz consider an example of the character of the community.

“This woman drove up, handed them some money, and drove off,” Watts said. “… It really makes me proud to be in Emporia. I’m not a native, but I would like to tell people I was.”

Watts, who was born in Kansas, has lived in the area full-time for about 2 1/2 years. Swartz moved here last year.

“This community has been so wonderful I don’t even know how to be able to thank everybody,” Swartz said.

The couple could have more to be thankful for, as the result of a fundraising challenge announced today by Ray Toso of the board of directors of the Clint Bowyer 79 Fund.

Bowyer, after hearing that the family had lost all of its possessions, decided that the 79 Fund would match donations from the public during a week-long fundraising blitz.

Toso said that Bowyer had wanted to help replace furniture, dishes and other household items lost in the fire.

“We’re going to put together a challenge and the 79 Fund will match whatever funds can be raised in the next week,” Toso said. “We will cap our match at $7,900. …They’re somebody that needs it. They lost everything.”

Swartz considers they were lucky, despite the losses. No one was home when the fire started the evening of Jan. 11 and by the time public safety dispatchers managed to reach Swartz, the house was engulfed in flames.

“She told me, ‘Jennifer, don’t go out there. You need to stay where you’re at. … You don’t need to see your house burn,’” Swartz recalled.

Swartz and Watts had rented the five-bedroom house from Robert and Regina Sparks and had moved in on Oct. 7 of last year. It was a perfect setting for their blended family, Watts said, with a wraparound porch and a 14 by 23 kitchen that would accommodate all of the duplicated appliances, dishes, pots and pans, and silverware that came together when the two separate households merged.

Much of what they owned came in twos — two computers, spare television sets, beds enough for all of the children, divans, loveseats and more. Watts had given Swartz a set of china she’d always wanted when they became engaged, and there was a china cabinet to hold it.

All of it, including a video camera, old family photos and more, was destroyed, as were all of the children’s Christmas gifts and Skylar’s birthday presents, too.

Swartz had been uneasy the day of the fire. She thought several times she smelled something burning, but could not find anything to indicate a fire.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m., they left to go to a friend’s house; less than two hours later, their home and everything in it was gone.

“I’m so relieved it wasn’t the middle of the night,” she said. “It gives me chills. It makes me sick at my stomach.”

Swartz also lost shelving and woodworking projects that had been made for her by her father, who died about eight years ago. The photographs of him and the family also are gone.

Swartz and Watts, though, know they cannot dwell on what they cannot bring back and are moving forward, trying to put their household back together again.

They’ve been given blow-up beds and a futon bunk bed to sleep on. Salvation Army and Red Cross have helped with clothing and other needs. Still, there are essential pieces of the household puzzle that are missing, from furniture to kitchen appliances.

The living room of their two-bedroom apartment is lined with sacks of clothing and toys and other donations that have no dressers or chests of drawers or cabinets to hold them.

But they have a pleasant place to live in as they try to get their lives back to normal. Jean and Brad Hase donated the apartment to the couple for three months.

“They have been wonderful to us,” Swartz said. “We get it rent-free. We just have to pay the utilities for three months.”

That donation is especially important to a family living on unemployment as Watts searches for a new job. He has considerable experience as an oil-field puller, Swartz said, and also has worked in construction.

She was optimistic that Watts soon would be able to find work.

“He’s a very smart person. He’s very, very articulate,” she said.

• Toso said that checks donated for the 79 Fund challenge need to be made out to the Emporia Community Foundation Family Fund.

“Then we’ll work things through the Emporia Community Foundation for tax purposes,” he said.

Anyone who needs more information may call Toso at 343-8050.