LAKELAND, Fla. (WFLA) — Ray Dilks couldn’t stand straight when he walked into his new home. His wife, Larrie Puryear Dilks, could only put her hand over her mouth in shock.
“I was overwhelmed,” Ray Dilks said. “I still don’t have no words. These people have been great.”
The Navy veteran and his wife lost their mobile home and nearly everything in it to a fire last November.
“I’ve been tensioned up ever since the place caught fire,” Ray said. “That tension was tearing me apart. I almost gave up.”
So did Larrie.
“Ever since the night of the fire, it’s just like, what do you do?” Larrie asked. “Who do you talk to?”
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.
“When we did finally get them under contract on a home,” Sparks explained. “He said to Ashley and I, ‘We’re not going to have anywhere to sleep.'”
So the two started reaching out to their network for furniture.
“Several of my past clients came forward and said, ‘We want to help you with this too.'” Sparks said. “And then members of church saw the post and said, ‘We want to help you with this too.'”
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.
“Restored my faith in people,” Ray said. “It did big time.”
Neither of them knew people cared this much.
“At first, we didn’t think there would ever be anybody to help us,” Larrie said. “We just had no idea that people could be this kind.”
They have nothing but love for everyone involved.
“Just knowing the joy that they were going to be filled with when they walked in, to feel it,” Ashley Lee said. “I feel like the whole room felt it.”
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 — their door is always open.