{"id":31097,"date":"2023-03-11T21:35:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T03:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=31097"},"modified":"2023-03-11T21:35:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T03:35:44","slug":"community-donates-furniture-to-fill-lakeland-veterans-new-home-after-a-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/03\/11\/community-donates-furniture-to-fill-lakeland-veterans-new-home-after-a-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Community donates furniture to fill Lakeland veteran\u2019s new home after a fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ray Dilks couldn\u2019t stand straight when he walked into his new home. His wife, Larrie Puryear Dilks, could only put her hand over her mouth in shock.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI was overwhelmed,\u201d Ray Dilks said. \u201cI still don\u2019t have no words. These people have been great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy veteran and his wife lost their mobile home and nearly everything in it to a fire last November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019ve been tensioned up ever since the place caught fire,\u201d Ray said. \u201cThat tension was tearing me apart. I almost gave up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So did Larrie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEver since the night of the fire, it\u2019s just like, what do you do?\u201d Larrie asked. \u201cWho do you talk to?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Dilks spent more than $10,000 living in an extended-stay hotel while they tried to find a new place. But in came real estate agents Lisa Sparks and Ashley Lee. They found the Dilks a place they could afford with the help of Veterans United Realty<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we did finally get them under contract on a home,\u201d Sparks explained. \u201cHe said to Ashley and I, \u2018We\u2019re not going to have anywhere to sleep.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the two started reaching out to their network for furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeveral of my past clients came forward and said, \u2018We want to help you with this too.’\u201d Sparks said. \u201cAnd then members of church saw the post and said, \u2018We want to help you with this too.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sparks collected donations for everything the Dilks needed on Thursday and put them in a U-Haul, then her and a team set up the whole house on Friday for the big reveal on Saturday. Both the Dilks were in tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRestored my faith in people,\u201d Ray said. \u201cIt did big time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither of them knew people cared this much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, we didn\u2019t think there would ever be anybody to help us,\u201d Larrie said. \u201cWe just had no idea that people could be this kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have nothing but love for everyone involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust knowing the joy that they were going to be filled with when they walked in, to feel it,\u201d Ashley Lee said. \u201cI feel like the whole room felt it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone was sniffling and wiping their eyes as Ray and Larrie went from room to room and got their keys. Now, they want the community to know \u2014 their door is always open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ray Dilks couldn\u2019t stand straight when he walked into his new home. His wife, Larrie Puryear Dilks, could only put her hand over her mouth in shock. \u201cI was overwhelmed,\u201d… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[4747],"class_list":["post-31097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-community-donates-furniture-to-fill-lakeland-veterans-new-home-after-a-fire"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}