Rob Pitts had never met David and Sherry Ebbert before the fire.
That, however, didn’t stop him from taking action to help the family.
After an afternoon fire destroyed the Ebberts’ barn last week, killing multiple animals, including a cow, 4-H goats and baby goats, Pitts, who lives down the road and witnessed the blaze, asked the couple if he could reach out to the community via social media to help them deal with the aftermath.
The fire, Pitts said, also destroyed a tractor, hay and feed for additional animals in the pasture. Firefighters had to shuttle water in to combat the fire as the area has no fire hydrants.
“It’s pretty terrible to see people watching a lot of time and investment burned down right in front of them,” Pitts said. “It’s a big loss, for sure.
“I don’t have much to give — I don’t have animals of my own. I don’t have hay or anything like that, but I feel the best thing I could do, with their permission, was put it on Facebook and see what we could get going for them.”
After creating the Facebook account detailing what happened, Pitts felt he would receive a modest response, acknowledging the lower-populated area.
But in less than 24 hours, the news had been shared on the platform more than 800 times. Pitts even comprised a list of what the Ebberts need and started a GoFundMe campaign.
“I know there are only a couple thousand people that live in Leroy and I figured, maybe, I could get 10, 15 people saying they would be willing to help out, maybe give some feed, provide space for them or help clean up the mess when the time comes, but I didn’t think there would be a couple thousand people sharing it all over Northeast Ohio,” he said.
While he describes Leroy Township as “living a country lifestyle,” Pitts said the outpouring of kindness from strangers, particularly non-township residents, has been most uplifting.
“I had a lady that contacted me, she lives down in Thompson, and she said, ‘Here’s my address, you can come and get what you need.’ And that was that. There was basically a couple hundred pounds, maybe a thousand pounds, or so, of hay that she was willing to give up to feed the animals that didn’t get killed.”
An offer to even help rebuild the barn has also amazed Pitts.
“There’s a guy that lives over on Paine (Road) who said he’d be willing to grab his tools and come help out free of charge,” he said. “I didn’t know if he’d supply any of the lumber, but he said he was willing to give up all of his time to help the family out. We do for each other out here.
“It tells me that your community is there, even though you may not have met them, and that there are obviously still good-hearted people out there. When you see a family in despair like that and feel their helplessness and empathize with them, you learn people are willing to give up a lot, and in less than 24 hours, apparently.”