After a storm dumped a silver maple tree down through his roof, Kansas resident Gilbert Kirk told local news that he wasn’t looking for a miracle or an insurance handout.
He just wanted a tarp.
Two days later, last Friday, a stranger arrived at Kirk’s debris-laden front lawn in Wyandotte County, and said he’d be back in 30 minutes with a tarp, some lumber, and a crew to cover up the maple-shaped gash in Kirk’s house.
“OK, whatever, you know,” he remembered thinking, in a follow-up interview with KCTV 5. “And then the next thing I know, he’s back with a load of lumber… and the next thing I know, there were just trucks,” he said, gesticulating to his driveway.
When the storm arrived, 71-year-old Kirk and his dog Beetle were trapped under the collapsed roof for hours. Now, for the first time in weeks, they have a new roof over their heads, and with help from a small arsenal of stand-up fans, the man has the semblance of a home again.
“Oh, it’s unbelievable, the way the community has come together,” Kirk said. “It’s drying out inside now, and I’ve got fans running in there… and it’s just drying it out good.”
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KCTV called the men ‘strangers’ but the crew who installed the tarp on Kirk’s roof identified themselves in a Facebook post from the network as local residents Kirk Mata, Steven Vega, Dominic Foreman, and Brigette Henson, while another community member, Phil Lopez, commented that he first helped Mr. Kirk pull the silver maple tree out of his house.
“He [Kirk] has called me every day to tell me thank you,” Vega wrote, “We just did what was right and needed to be done.”
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