LOWNDES CO., AL (WSFA) -
Rosa Harris is speechless after a mouth dropping miracle happened to her family of 10.
"To bless us with such an amazing beautiful home. If you only knew were me and my husband have come from, our struggles in life," Rosa Harris said.
An anonymous donor presented her family with this four bedroom, three bath home that has been completely furnished. Some items are still being delivered. The cost exceeds $70,000 Rosa's husband frank says it was nothing but God.
"He sent the flood and took everything away and in the end we had a lot of people that we don't know. A lot of people who we know of. We are truly blessed to be where we are now," Frank Harris said.
And not one family, but two received new homes. Here's the Smith's family three bedroom, two bath home that's fully furnished as well.
"Words can't explain. It's so lovely. [We didn't pay] nothing, free, donated to us. I want to thank the donor who did it for us. It was just amazing," Sears Smith said.
After months of living in hotels and with families, the Smiths and Harris' now have homes in a non-flood area.
Emotions also ran high for those who helped these families while they struggled to find assistance like Catherine Flowers with the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprises.
"There is someone out there that's willing to give in such a selfless manner and not expect anything in return but to see these families happy," Flowers said.
"To everyone that helped and to everyone that didn't thank you so much," Frank Harris said.
Flowers says after the help received from the Red Cross was no longer available the families her office, the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise and the Equal Justice Initiative requesting assistance. ACRE and EJI provided several weeks of hotel accommodations for both families, while public appeals brought additional support.
Flowers says this is truly a community effort and many acts of goodwill made this possible. She says the septic systems for each location were provided by the Kess Environmental and Danny Brown, the Alabama Onsite Wastewater Association, Northwest Supply in Prattville, The Organized Community Action Program, and Allen Nipp of Infiltrator Systems. Flowers wants to send a special thanks to Burton Fisher of the Lowndes County Health Department for this attention to this matter and engineer David Butz and Stephanie Wallace of ACRE who assisted in coordinating the effort.
And as we reported in September, neither family had flood insurance. Now they do, as well as home owner's insurance. Donation estimates for the two fully furnished home are around $175,000. And since sewage is such an issue in Lowndes County. Septic tanks were also given to the families by another donor.
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