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BENEFIT AUCTION

Mike and April Hitch Benefit

Administrator:

20205 NW 29 Terr

Brooker, FL 32622

September 2007

This auction is to help raise money for April and Mike Hitch who lost their home in a devastating house fire. They have lost all of their personal items and were only left with the clothes on their back. WalMart cards or direct donations can be made to:

April and Mike Hitch
1561 Bridgeville Rd.
Germantown, KY 41044

Thank you for any help you can offer.

Update: October 27 2007
A note from April Hitch:

As many of you have heard, my family and I have experienced a terrible fire on September 12, 2007. It happened at approximately 7:15 pm. At the time Mike and I and our 3 yr old twins Faith and Hope had just left the farm and were on our way to go get a box springs and mattress for them (the twins) as we were re-doing a room for the girls upstairs. The older children, Garrett aged 14, Dylan 13, Shanna 9, and Chase 7, had decided they wanted to stay home feed milk as we had just finished up chores and then play some basketball as the weather was so pretty. We were only to be gone 45 minutes or so. Mike and I and the girls had been gone from home exactly 10 minutes when my cell phone rang. It was Garrett, he said " The house is on fire, we have called 9-1-1 and you have to come home!". He then hung up and I could not get him back on the line. That was the scariest few minutes of my life. I immediately relayed this to Mike and he did a U-turn and headed home as fast as he dared, I called our next door neighbor Dan Schweighert and told him as fast as I could speak that our house was on fire, my kids were home and to get over there and not to let them back in there for anything!!! I was to find out that they were safely watching from across the road with our other neighbor Sarah Fryman and that the Firemen were already heading that way. We made it home in under 7 minutes. In that amount of time the entire front of our home which was our bedroom, living room, Shanna's bedroom and what was to be the girl's room as well as 2 hallways were engulfed in flames and gone. A total of 17 minutes....we had been in those rooms and changing clothes 17 minutes earlier. Sarah Fryman was across the road on her front porch and saw the smoke and walked down her drive way which is about the length of a city block to make sure no one was in the house and the windows blew out, that hot and that quick. The kids were alerted from our goat barn when the dogs started barking and they went to see what it was and saw smoke then called 9-1-1. Yes, we have smart kids, good and responsible kids. Great neighbors---I have learned how great in these days following this fire. The house burned from 7:15 until 12:30 that night, the fire departments from our county and 3 others were called. A total of 27,000 gallons of water was put on it at that time. The shell and some of the out side walls were standing that night but all contents were lost. The remainder started to burn again and the fire department was out again at 2:50 am and then 3 more times before our insurance adjuster could make it out on Friday morning. All was lost, nothing was salvaged. We thank God each and every day that this did not happen at night, no one thinks that we could have all made it out of the house. The only causality was our house dog TarTar, our 2 1/2 yr old Chihuahua. That has been a hard loss to take as well, she slept with Dylan and was Faith's best playmate next to Hope. The cause of the fire was determined to be faulty wiring, and a wall fire was what had occurred. A very fast and furious thing to behold.

We were literally left with just the clothes on our back, some of the kids didn't even have much of that. Shanna was doing chores in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, no shoes no socks. A neighbor I had never met went and got a pair of shoes and socks and put on her while we were watching our house burn. The boys had on barn jeans and shirts, Chase---one of the rattiest pairs you would hope to see and rubber boots that the Anatolian pup had chewed the top off of. Suddenly that is all he owned in the world.

It was hard on the kids especially. The twins who just turned 3 years old in June were being potty trained suddenly went to a screeching halt with that and returned to pull ups. They cried for the first week that they wanted to go home to their house and wouldn't sleep. Chase is my solemn one and he would just walk around and keep mentioned what he "used" to have. He still does some of that. Garrett was far more up beat but he had lost the least, he stays part time at his Mom's house so he has belongings at both houses so he didn't feel too bad. There was and still is a lot of bickering that we never had between the kids.

We are currently living in a 24 x 30 building that is located 20 foot behind our goat barn. To put that in perspective it is the size of a two car garage. This building was originally build by the owner of the farm we bought it from as a small church. It was one big room with a half bath---sink and toilet. The building is finished, concrete floor but ceiling and walls are stucco. It does have heat and air. Though it is very, very small we are lucky to have it. A couple of days after the fire, our neighbor Kevin Stears (Sarah's husband) who is a contractor, came in and boxed in a shower for us. God bless him!! I don't know how I would have got 6 kids to school without a shower!! He said it wasn't pretty, but to me it was beautiful, particle board and all. For a while all 8 of us were in here and it was wall to wall people, clothes totes, and furniture. Another neighbor has loaned us an RV for the boys to sleep in so that helps out some too. We have now put our clothes in a storage building outside, like a big walkout closet if you will, not very handy---especially as it is getting colder and wetter---but definitely better than nothing!

We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the overwhelming generosity that we have been shown!! I can not express how touched I have been with the kindness and love that have extended to us in this time of need. We don't know what we would have done without the gifts from our neighbors, friends, goat family and sometimes total strangers. For the first few weeks it seemed like every day a package, envelopes or special delivery came from UPS bearing a new and unexpected gift from some Good Samaritan. Weather it be clothes for Mike, the kids or I, some new flatware, games, monetary gift, great treats to munch on or those extra wonderful Florida packages that were like a scavenger hunt, LOL it would bring tears to my eyes literally every time the mail or delivery trucks would come. It gave my children something to look forward to in such a dark time. They would all “call“ what they wanted to claim for themselves. The Come To The Farm Auction has been a God Send.
I can't say thank you enough for all of the wonderful donations from everyone from the wonderful animals, semen, crafts, talents, etc., to the buyers that have supported this coast to coast!!! I will never again see someone in need and not be able to try to help in any way. The two small "emergency" checks issued by our insurance company so far would not have covered our immediate needs by a long shot and we simply did not have the money to completely reclothed, set up house hold and basically start over. As of me writing this we have not received anything on the house or contents yet from the insurance.

We do know that we were very underinsured. The estimates to rebuild what we had, a 2000 square ft two story farm house are $40-$60K more than our policy limits. We will also easily go overly our limits on contents. You don't think you own much until you go to replace things and they are so expensive. We know we will not be rebuilding a two story house, that is out of the question and the amount of square footage will be what we can afford with the insurance money we get.

Yet as bad as this was, it could have been so much worse. Our babies are safe, all 6 of them from 14yrs-3yrs, it has been hard, continues to be but I have always heard that we are given no more than we can handle, though sometimes I know we wonder. Nothing that we lost in that house can't be replaced in one way or the other. Some things are extremely hard to lose and we all shall miss them, but we could never replace each other. We have received wonderful support from all the groups and want to thank everyone!!

Again, thank you all!!!

Mike & April Hitch & Family
Shady Lawn Farms