HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - When Tammi Warrington of Hutchinson saw a story on Facebook that tugged at her heart strings earlier this year, she could have just shared it with friends. But in this case, that wasn’t good enough, she decided. She had to do something about it.
A page she follows had posted a screenshot of a story someone had written on Facebook. The man had found a letter in the car he bought for his 16-year-old daughter. The letter was from the previous owner, who lost the car to repossession because she couldn’t pay all of the bills after her mother, Wilma; 6-year-old daughter, Jensyn; and aunt, Abby; died in a house fire.
The letter said the car, a silver Ford Fusion, was the only thing the woman had left of her family after the fire. The letter talked about all the adventures the family had in the car and wished the new owner would have their own memorable adventures.
Warrington said it struck her how the letter-writer wasn’t bitter about losing the car. She empathized with the woman’s situation, thinking about the death of her father, and how crushed she would be if her 5-year-old son, Eben, died.
“It devastated me on her behalf,” Warrington said.
So she decided she wanted to raise the money to buy the car back for the letter-writer, whose name she didn’t know.
“She has got to have this car back,” she remembered thinking.
All she had to go by was the name of the person who posted about it on Facebook originally, Kevin Duke, and some details about the fire.
Searching online, she was able to find where the fire occurred. With the expectation that the car wouldn’t have been taken very far before being sold after it was repossessed, she was then able to narrow down her search area for Duke. Even then, there were many Kevin Dukes in Kentucky to search through.
When she figured out which was the right Duke and contacted him, she found he had already been in touch with the woman who lost the car to repossession, Sabrina Archey. Together, Warrington and Duke calculated that an online fundraiser generating about $12,000 would be enough for Duke to replace the car, pay gift taxes to return it to Archey, pay credit card processing fees and take care of any other miscellaneous costs.
Archey said at first she was in shock, then disbelief, that strangers wanted to help her this way. She said she knows there are a lot of good people, but she didn’t expect to be the one they helped.
“I feel really blessed,” Archey said.
The Hutchinson News (https://bit.ly/2r96Zwn ) reports that Warrington set up the online fundraising campaign. After a few days, the campaign had collected pledges of a few hundred dollars. Then, overnight, it jumped to $3,500 and Warrington was overwhelmed with emails after an Australian television station ran a story about the campaign.
From there, the fundraiser went well and was on track to be able to return the car to Archey in February. But among the emails Warrington received was one about telling the story on a television special. At first she assumed it was a prank, but she investigated the production company and producer mentioned in the email and found out it was legitimate.
Still, Warrington was leery of making a television story out of the situation, because she wanted to protect Archey’s privacy. Archey, though, was on board with the idea, seeing it as a positive way to help memorialize her family, and Duke said he would do anything to help except appear on TV.
So work began with the TV producers to get the story as part of the TV special - the finale episode of TLC’s “This Is Life Live.” Warrington said televising the story took much, much more work than the fundraising to get the car back to Archey, and it still didn’t feel real until producers made a trip to Hutchinson for interviews and to record footage of a fundraiser Warrington and volunteers from Eastwood Church of Christ had at Pizza Ranch - and she said she didn’t think the TV show gave Pizza Ranch the credit it deserved for allowing the fundraiser during the NJCAA Tournament.
Finally, on April 26, Warrington, Duke and Archey appeared on “This Is Life Live” from Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Duke relented and agreed to be on TV on the condition that he be the one to hand Archey the keys to “Sylvia,” the car in question.
Archey said the entire experience of the story being televised was surreal, and she still can’t find the right words to describe how she felt.
Warrington said being on live TV was a bizarre experience and involved a lot of hurry-up-and-wait situations, but it happened fast enough she didn’t have a chance to get nervous. What made it all worth it was going for a ride in Sylvia immediately after the show with Archey, Duke and Duke’s daughter, Jada.
“It was awesome,” Warrington said. “I was on cloud nine.”
Archey said her hands were shaking, heart pounding and knees knocking during the brief drive. She said she could feel the indentations in the steering wheel from how her mother held the wheel, and she could almost smell her mother’s favorite perfume.
“It was amazing to feel these things again,” she said.
Warrington said Jada was incredibly gracious and had even offered to hand over the car before she had a replacement. She did have a replacement, and like Sylvia, her new car was a silver Ford Fusion, which she named Sylvia2.
Since returning to Hutchinson, Warrington has had a tattoo Archey has in memory of her family made into car decals for Sylvia, Sylvia2 and her own car.
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Information from: The Hutchinson (Kan.) News, https://www.hutchnews.com
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