CRAWFORD COUNTY : Community rallies aid for family
Posted on Monday, December 24, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/211644/
MOUNTAINBURG — After schoolteacher Jim Hall and his family watched their Crawford County home burn to the ground early on Dec. 13, they had a startling realization.
It was 28 degrees outside, and their only remaining possessions were the nightclothes on their backs.
Tina Hall hadn’t even remembered to take an important package she’d once stashed at the top of her closet.
“I had a sentimental box, full of pictures and ‘if-anything-everhappens stuff’,” she recalled.
But there was not one thought of that box as she, her husband and their five children ran from the rock home on Mote Road, trying to battle the flames while waiting for firefighters.
By the time the realization settled in that their home would not be saved, it was no longer safe to re-enter, Tina Hall said last week. She stood outside a newly rented home in Mountainburg that has been furnished by schools, churches and communities stretching from Benton County to Springdale to Mulberry.
The family has been so overwhelmed and touched by the magnitude of the outpouring of support from students, friends, colleagues and strangers that tears frequently well up in Tina Hall’s eyes when she describes it.
Their biggest fear is that they won’t be able to thank those who have donated items and support or offered help.
“We’ve had seven to nine offers of homes,” Tina Hall said as she and the family sat on a bed amidst unpacked boxes. These included free or discounted rentals, ranging from a place on a Mulberry farm to a lakehouse at Beaver Lake.
By Dec. 16, the Halls, unsure what kind of claim their insurance company would pay, found a rental home near Mountainburg Elementary School. Truckloads of furnishings had begun arriving as early as the Friday night after the fire.
Relief efforts had quickly geared up at Springdale’s Har-Ber High School, where Jim Hall is in his first semester teaching agriculture, and in the Springdale School District.
“I get a call about 5: 30 a. m.,” said Har-Ber Principal Danny Brackett. It was a message from Patti Priest, an agriculture instructor at Har-Ber.
“Jim’s home was still burning, and it looked like they were going to lose everything,” Brackett recalled.
Later that Thursday morning, Brackett said he made an announcement in school, saying there was a collection envelope in the office. He sent an e-mail to principals throughout the Springdale School District.
One student told him: “Here’s a twenty. I just need a couple dollars in change for lunch, but give the rest to Mr. Hall,” Brackett said. They raised a few thousand dollars just in that first day.
Faculty began scrambling, rounding up donations of new and used furniture and appliances.
“They delivered money, clothes, food and necessities that same night,” Jim Hall said. Until then, Tina Hall added, the family didn’t have so much as a change of socks.
Also on Thursday morning, friends at the convenience store in Mountainburg, the M-Town One Stop wasted no time in setting up a collection box for the family.
On Dec. 14, the Halls received a first major arrival of donations when 32 students arrived in 10 trucks and cars.
The second day in their new home, 18 Har-Ber High Future Farmers of America students brought out the bulk of the donations, the Halls said.
Those FFA students were among FFA chapters in Lincoln, St. Paul, Elkins and at Springdale High School that have helped. Before Jim Hall began teaching at Har-Ber, he taught agriculture for 17 years at Mountainburg High School.
In the new Hall family home, there are rooms full of furnishings: couches, recliners, bedroom furniture, large appliances, televisions. The students even delivered a large Christmas tree, garland and decorations.
“They asked each kid to bring their own ornament and put it in the box,” Jim Hall said.
Jim Hall said he and Tina, married for three years, have five children — “hers, mine and ours” — who were home with them during the fire: Christopher Dollard, 19; Brittany Dollard, 18; and Dalton, Dillon and Jyme Hall, ages 10, 5 and 2, respectively.
Brittany was awakened about 3 a. m. Dec. 13 by a sickening smell of fumes: “I’m usually a heavy sleeper,” she said.
Christopher ordered his stepfather (whom he still calls “Mr. Hall,” a habit acquired after studying in Hall’s classes before his mom married ) off the roof when Hall’s efforts to battle the fire with a garden hose were clearly failing. He prevented his mother from rushing back into the house for her box of pictures once the family realized the house was a goner.
The days since the fire have been blurred as the family rushed around to set up a new household.
“It’s been crazy,” Tina Hall said tearfully as she twirled a gold wedding band on her left hand. The ring was a loaner from a close friend, since her wedding ring was lost in the fire.
“I mean, tiny churches that we never have attended took up collections for us,” she said.
“I can’t recall any effort of this magnitude, of this nature, this quick,” said Brackett, who has worked in the Springdale district more than six years and is in his 24 th year as a school administrator in Arkansas.
Tina Hall was surprised by the speed of the help: Red Cross volunteers arrived even while the house still was burning.
Carmen Newberry, volunteer program manager at the American Red Cross’ Northwest Arkansas chapter, said volunteers frequently get calls from fire departments, and are able to arrive at disaster scenes early.
Victims sometimes don’t have insurance, or don’t know when their insurance claims will kick in to help with temporary shelter, clothing and food.
The huge outpouring of support has meant more to the Halls emotionally than the necessities they’ve received, and certainly is more important to them than the possessions they lost, she said.
“You know how there’s so much bad, and so much bad, and so much bad in the world ?” Tina Hall said, her voice still quavering.
“This kind of restores your faith in humankind.”