Friend and fellow Deputy needs help! (UPDATED w/PAYPAL ACCT.)

[Shadow]

Here's the PayPal link for those wishing to donate:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...harset=UTF%2d8


Once again, thank you!!


I've known this guy for several years and he's a top notch, very personable officer.

Ray has helped me in the past and now, I'd like to return the favor as a forum if possible?

If anyone has anything they can donate, please e-mail me @ gordon@brainerdandassociates.com

If you want to donate $$ individually, thats fine too. They have a fund set up for that already, the Lynn Sowers Fund.

However, if you'd like to join me as a forum member, again please e-mail me at the above address and we'll get the details worked out.

I'll leave this open for donations for a week.

At the end of it, we'll put all the funds in one pot and present them a check from the forum members.

Thanks

Here's the link and story:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/apr...one-home-fire/

Published: April 4, 2008

Updated: 04/04/2008 04:49 pm

KEYSTONE -- A piece of Keystone history, the yellow wood-frame at Peterson Road Park that was the home of a Hillsborough County deputy and his family, was destroyed by fire Thursday night.

No one was home when the fire broke out, officials said. Deputy Ray Rembert, a school resource officer at Ben Hill Middle School, lived in the house with his children and his fiancée, Debra Turner.

The house and its contents were a complete loss, Yeakley said. No one was injured and the cause of the fire is under investigation.

Rembert visited the site today and said he was told by an official with the fire marshal's office that the cause of the fire appeared to be electrical.

Rembert, 38, has been with the sheriff's office since 1996.

The house, which sits on 4.3 acres of land, was built by the late Charlie Walker, who pushed Hillsborough County to build a school for black children in 1924. Walker's contributions were recognized in 1996 when the Hillsborough County School Board named a middle school in Citrus Park in his honor.

The Rev. Barron Madison, who leads the First Missionary Baptist Church of Keystone across the street from the house, said a community meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday night to discuss the fire and discuss ways they can help Rembert and his family.

The church is at 8202 Peterson Road.

The loss of the house is a blow to the community's heritage, Madison said.

"The memory of this place is just incredible," he said.

It's a huge loss on another front, too, Madison said. Area residents want to help Rembert.

"He means so much to this community," Madison said. "This community wants to give back to him. Whenever there are any problems out here, we go to Ray. Ray gets to the bottom of it if there is any kind of dispute.

"We know we've got a good officer in this neighborhood that we can go to and we're going to get the response that we need."

Madison watched the firefighters at the scene and criticized what he considered a slow response time and no sense of urgency on the part of the crews.

"They were just real, real slow," he said. "When the first truck arrived, the fire was on the porch. There [were] fire trucks lined up from the park to Gunn Highway and there was one hose on this fire."

Rembert said he didn't have any information about the response time.

His fiancée said she was disturbed at the area's lack of fire hydrants. "There's no hydrants out here at all," Turner said. "That's unacceptable."

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crews responded to the call about 8:30 p.m. and found the home about 50 percent in flames, spokesman Ray Yeakley said. The fire was under control in about 45 minutes, but about half the deputy's home was burned.

Yeakley said firefighters arrived about seven minutes after getting the call, which is within the average response time.

"Since the house was so far gone, and we knew that nobody was inside, we weren't going to put firefighters at risk for what we considered a lost structure," he said.

The fire department sent more than enough fire engines and tankers to handle the blaze, and there was never any shortage of water, Yeakley said.

The sheriff's office is accepting donations for the family, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said. Checks can be sent to the sheriff's office's Lynn Sowers Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps sheriff's employees, with a note on the check that the donation is for Rembert's family.

Another deputy has offered the family the use of a fully furnished apartment and the agency's peer support group is assisting to meet their immediate needs, Callaway said.

It is not uncommon for law enforcement officers or other county employees to live on county-owned land rent free, said Parks and Recreation spokesman John Brill.

"That provides a security presence at those sites," Brill said. "In return for living at the park, we often provide either utilities or a fenced-in area for a yard."

The occupants must patrol the property twice daily, open and close any gates and keep a daily log, he said.

Donations of clothing for the children can be left at the District 3 office at 7202 Gunn Highway, Callaway said.

The children's ages and clothing sizes are as follows:

A 15-year-old son who wears adult size extra large shirts, 36x34 pants and size 15 to 16 shoes.

A 13-year-old son who wears adult size extra large shirts, 38x30 pants and size 12 shoes.

An 11-year-old son who wears adult size small shirts, boys size 16 pants and size 10 shoes.

A 12-year-old daughter who wears adult size large shirts and size 10 shoes.

Reporter B.C. Manion can be reached at (813) 865-1507 or bmanion@tamptrib.com. Mike Wells can be reached at (813) 259-7839 or mwells@tampatrib.com.