Rebuilding Lives Through Acts of Kindness

 Meet Wayne Tomlinson, our inspiring guest who turned a virtual neighborhood app into a lifeline for families in need. Wayne shares his heartfelt journey of organizing local aid through Nextdoor, helping 51 families with essentials like groceries and rent, and even assisting women to escape abusive situations. His story is a powerful reminder of what can happen when people choose to focus on making a real difference.

Hear about the hurdles Wayne faced, from accusations of running a scam to the rigorous vetting process to ensure help went to those truly in need. We dive into the complexities of identifying genuine claims while combating habitual scammers. Plus, you'll discover the profound impact of donations, no matter how small, and how transparency and proof can turn skeptics into supporters.

Finally, get ready for a heartwarming tale of rebuilding hope from the ashes. Wayne recounts the extensive effort to help a family restore their home after a devastating fire.  Celebrate the strength of community and the spirit of giving!

To reach out to Wayne directly: wtomlinson2002@yahoo.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Neighbors Helping Neighbors
• 13:56 Community Support and Vetting Process
• 19:01 Helping Families Rebuild Together
• 28:04 Open Invitation to Share Stories

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's the Elsa Kurt Show with Clay Novak. Conservative views on world news Brought to you by the Wellness Company. Prepare for the unexpected and Refuge Medical. And now it's time for the show.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Well, hello everyone. I have a special interview with a man with a cause, with a mission here, and it's a really special one. His name is Wayne Tomlinson, and I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you, so a really special one. His name is Wayne Tomlinson, and I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you so much for coming on, thank you, Elsa.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 0:30

So I was a little slow rolling here and getting this moving and I apologize for that. You know, I don't know if people realize this and this is like me playing my tiny, tiny violin. I'm a one woman show trying to get it all. You know, do all of the things and you know that there's my little violin playing for myself right there, but I love it. It's not a complaint, just an apology for you know not to not get moving on this faster, so let's start.

Speaker 2: 0:54

So I want to start first talking about you and hearing a little bit about you and your background, so I know that you have. Now you tell me if this is a page or a group or you're just part of it.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Neighbors helping neighbors Is that an app or so when the pandemic started, I was monitoring an app called Nextdoor, and the Nextdoor app just links you to people in your geographic neighborhood in your geographic neighborhood. So all the people that you're talking to in that social media app are all people within 10 or 15 minutes of you. So I was on Nextdoor one day and this was like in April of 2020. So everything was being shut down, people were losing their jobs everywhere and somebody posted on there complaining about a dog pooped in their yard. That's pretty common on Nextdoor and I went on there and I just told everybody. I said you know, you probably have neighbors on your block that have lost their job and don't know where their next paycheck's going to come from, and you're complaining about a dog pooped in your yard. I mean, there's a lot more difficult things to be dealing with than cleaning up somebody after somebody's dog. So true. So I told everybody. I said look, I personally don't have the means to help somebody that has a dire need, like paying a mortgage payment or paying a utility payment. I can't come up with that kind of cash, but as a neighborhood, maybe we could help somebody. So I just opened it up. If you need some help right now because of the pandemic. Let me know and maybe we can get you some help. And so, uh, within just I think of it as a second day I got a.

Speaker 1: 2:48

I got a text from somebody that told me that the girl that does her nails has lost her job because the salon shut down and she can't work at home or she loses her license. So this lady had a toddler child and she was rooming with, she had joined forces with another person that worked, another girl that worked at that salon, with three toddler children living in an apartment together, and together both of them had no income. So they didn't know where they were going to get rent or utility payments or even food for the kids. And so I went on Nextdoor and I posted on Nextdoor the story.

Speaker 1: 3:40

These two girls needed help, they need help with food, they need help for a utility payment and they need help with food, they need help for utility payment, they need help with a rent payment. And also, within three days I had an entry hall full of groceries. We had collected like $2,100 just from neighbors. I mean, everybody that we've ever dealt with in doing that on Nextdoor has all the donations, all the help we've gotten has all been within 15 minutes of the house. We've never traveled more than 10 or 15 minutes from the house to pick up donations or to pick up groceries or to pick up whatever people are donating.

Speaker 2: 4:24

I was going to say. You know, when we think back on that whole time frame, we forget about the people who were struggling in that way. You know, most of us, or a large portion of us, think about you know how we were confined to our houses and it was boring, but there were so many people financially struggling, and I mean never mind mentally struggling, with the isolation and all of those things. That's a whole other topic. But you know, when you talk about these people who could not work, couldn't earn a living, couldn't support themselves, and it was abrupt, it was just like you're done and that was it. And you know, when you hear stories like that, it's just mind blowing. And then people like you come along and you're like well, wait a minute, we can, we can do something about this. You know, instead of complaining about somebody's dog pooping in the in the grass, let's actually use this app for something um, productive and useful and good. So what kudos to you big time.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Yeah, now, we went on from there. Yeah, we went on from there. We helped in the next 20 months just through, just through, next the next door app and all of our neighbors get you know helping people out. It was. It was just phenomenal what we accomplished. We helped. We helped 51 families, wow. Sometimes it was just paying a utility payment, sometimes it was paying a rent payment or a mortgage payment, sometimes it was we had three people ladies that were getting away from abusive relationships.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Hmm and having to start over, and you probably know how that is when a lady finally makes that decision she just picks up her children and whatever clothes they have on their back and they get away.

Speaker 2: 6:13

That's very true.

Speaker 1: 6:14

And the first time a lady contacted me and said a lady that works with her just started where she works and this lady has relocated, works. And this lady has relocated, moved from another town and she has a 10-year-old son and she has a job and she's got an apartment because she has a job, but the apartment is blank. She says they don't have any furniture, they don't have any housewares, they don't have anything. She said they sleep on the floor and so I put that on next door on a Wednesday night and Saturday I delivered over to them an entire house, an entire apartment full of furniture. That's incredible.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Bedroom suit, a living room suit, a dining room, table and chairs, housewares for the kitchen, bedding for all the beds I mean. It was an incredible response from people and most of the time it was just like I've got this bed in my garage I'm not using, I'll give to them. Or I've got a dining room table. I'll give to them if you can come by and pick it up. And that's what we did, and it was just an amazing response from the community and we did that three times for three different ladies.

Speaker 2: 7:30

Now is that how you hear about these cases Basically, kind of like a little bit of word of mouth, or somebody maybe post something on the app. And let me just ask a quick question about the Nextdoor app. That's nationwide, that's across the country, like every community has access to that. It's like everywhere. Okay, I thought so. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:45

So I told you. I told you, I travel a lot, so I spend. I spend six months of the year in Florida and I travel the other six months. Well, when I left Texas and went to Florida, I started doing the same thing in Florida. The next door app is right there. Just pull it up, tell you. Tell it where your neighborhood is, expand it as much as you want. And I started the same deal in Florida. So that's how I got involved with the current effort that I'm involved in was I was looking on Nextdoor and a lady posted on Nextdoor that they suffered a house fire and they lost everything they own. She said we're living with a relative, but that's going to get old real quick. We just need some help.

Speaker 2: 8:26

Sure, and you were kind enough to send some pictures along. Let me just show some a couple of those as we're talking. I mean, this is obvious complete devastation, absolute destruction. So that's you know. They lost everything. Obviously.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Yeah, so what we did, I told her. I said, well, let me, let me use next door and I will try to spur some donations to you and see what kind of help I can get. Okay, so I started looking for contractors. She set up a GoFundMe page and if you go to their GoFundMe page today it's right at about $12,000. Wow, so that's in donations, pretty much just from the neighborhood. I have reached out to friends and colleagues that I had in the construction industry and gotten some other donations from those. But most of the donations that you see that get it to that $12,000 is all neighbors in that vicinity there in Tampa. So uh, we also.

Speaker 1: 9:29

I also helped them, since I have a construction background. I helped them with trying to find contractors to help and I contacted surf pro first and uh, surf pro gave us a quote to clean up the house, to remove all the damage and clean things up was going to be seventy thousand dollars. Yeah, so I asked surf pro look, these people are in dire straits. I know you get most of your money from insurance claims and these people don't have they didn't have insurance. They just don't have the means to pay for the insurance. So they're on a very limited income and they just couldn't afford it. So I said would you do something for us and maybe do this on a pro bono deal? And they said no, we can't do that. I thought you know, being a multi-million dollar company, I'm just asking for.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Right, Never hurts to ask One deal you know, but they wouldn't do it.

Speaker 1: 10:18

So me and the homeowner and one other guy got busy and we started cleaning it up ourselves. Now I think I sent you some pictures of what it looks like today.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 10:29

You can see we've made a lot of progress. We have spent money on trips to the city dump, on cleaning supplies, on framing supplies to repair some damage to walls and roof structure, but we've got all those repairs done and we've got all the wood sealed so there's no smell of smoke anymore and we're ready to go back in with some contractors now. And what I did? I kept working with local contractors. If I found, if a contractor posted something on next door like a plumber posts on next door that he's a plumber and needing work, I would contact him and I'd say you know, I got this couple. Would you really be willing to help? And I probably asked well, I don't know how many people I asked, but I asked a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I found a guy at church that could help me find an electrician. He said here, call this guy, he'll help you. And I called this electrician up and I told him the story and he said well, let me come over and look at it. I said, okay. So I met him and the homeowner over at the house and he looked at everything and he said he said, yeah, we can take care of this. And I said, well, okay, well, how much? How much is it going to cost us? And he said nothing. I'll redo the electrical service. I'll rough in everything, I'll supply the fixtures and trim it all out. I won't charge anything.

Speaker 2: 11:42

Talk about, you know, restoring faith in humanity. These are the kind of stories we need to hear, because I think we, we, truly again we, we are so forgetful of all the good things because we get inundated with all of the bad things and all the bad news and all of the negative things, and and especially when it comes to social media. You know, social media is such a oftentimes a cesspool of garbage just pure disgusting garbage-ness and I just made up another word today garbage-ness.

Speaker 1: 12:13

It's a new word everyone. Well, I'll tell you. I mean, your program is a lot of political discourse. It's a lot, yeah. And I'll tell you in my effort, I don't care what somebody's political stance is. All I'm looking for is to help people. So, I don't care if you're Republican, democrat, independent Socialist, communist, I don't care. If you're willing to help somebody, I'll help you do that.

Speaker 2: 12:37

I love that. I love that and that's what it really should be getting to. That's where we should always be, in that mindset that. You know, I don't care any of those things, and you can add to that race color ethnicity right Like all of the things that a human being.

Speaker 2: 12:53

If you are a human being and you see a human being in need of help, you know the common sense thing to do, the compassionate thing to do, is to do what you can and help. And I love what you said early on. You know you said that you didn't. You know like most of us this is, you know you're speaking for most of the population don't have the means to be shelling out money to help people. Just, you did the one thing and I and you made me think of my grandfather, um, cause my grandfather always said the worst thing someone when you ask somebody something of someone, um, the worst thing someone when you ask somebody something of someone, the worst thing they can say is no. And I love that.

Speaker 2: 13:29

You're courageous and bold enough to just simply ask. And you know, and someone like me, like I have, I can't ask for help if my life literally depended on it. I don't even know if I can formulate the word help. It's just that stubborn stupidity really. So to ask someone for help, and you know and I know you're not asking for yourself, you're asking for other people, which probably makes it a lot easier, right, like I wouldn't be able to ask for me. I definitely would be able to ask for other people. I think so, so and that's, that's what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Yeah, I'll tell you also with that that, uh, I've been accused of running a scam more than once and I had one guy go on next door and tell everybody, don't give your money to this guy, he's just running a scam. And so I'll have to admit. I Googled the guy and found out. You know, like I said, everybody lives within 10 minutes of the house.

Speaker 1: 14:23

So I Googled him and found out he lived a mile away from us. He was a general contractor. So instead of complaining about it, he could have offered to help some of these people, right, right, so he was a general contractor. I found out where he lived and so I contacted him with a private message and I said look, just between me and you. I don't appreciate you going on there and telling everybody I'm running a scam because I'm not. And I said if you want proof of it, I can come over to your house. Or you come over to my house anytime, unannounced. You just come over here and we'll go to one of these people's houses. I won't even have a chance to call them, we'll just go over to their house and you can ask them if we delivered the money that we promised them and just see if I'm running a scam. And and just see if I'm running a scam. And he said I just might do that.

Speaker 1: 15:06

I said well, I'll tell you what the first stop we're going to make is. In your block, we help somebody on your block make a utility payment. So that'll be our first stop. I said they asked for a $749 utility payment or something like that, and I collected $1,410 for them and I took them all $1,410. And we just go over there and so I've been accused of running a scam several times because I mean we and I'll tell you about the donations you mentioned about. You know, you and I don't have the means personally to help a lot of these people. The biggest donation I've received is probably about between a thousand and fifteen hundred dollars. But I get a lot of donations. I mean we get a lot of donations of twenty dollars. If you go on to that person's GoFundMe page that we're trying to help right now, there's a lot of donations on there for $20 and $25 and $50.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Right, they always say no amount is too small, every little bit helps, you know. Do what you can do, there's no shame, right?

Speaker 1: 16:08

I tell everybody, the biggest donation I ever got was when a guy asked me if he could help and I said yes. He said well, where do you live? I told him he drove over to my house and he drove up in an old, beat up brown pickup truck. Okay, he got out of his truck. I met him in the driveway and he says I wanted to make a donation to the people you're raising money for right now. And I said, okay, he reached in his wallet. He took everything out of his wallet. It totaled $28. And I tell everybody that's the most I've ever gotten, because it was everything the man had. Yes, he was willing to give everything he had, which was $28, to somebody else.

Speaker 2: 16:50

There are some really, really good people out there. Now I would be remiss to not ask about you know you mentioned well, you mentioned people thought you were scamming people, but do you ever, or have you ever come across a situation where somebody was trying to scam you guys for money? Because I would imagine that's a part of the you know. Yeah that's a good question.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Like I said, I watch Nextdoor pretty regularly, pretty much all the time. So I see people that are on there every week, every month, asking for the same thing. So they have not had something happen in their life that caused them to be at this point, like like during the pandemic. Those people I mean a lot of those, most of those people had no choice, had no knowledge that was coming, just all surprised by it. Other people it's, they just lost their job. But the people that go on there and ask for help every week, I mean nobody's going to help them, right, cause they see them on there every week too.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Yeah, you can tell right, you get a good feel if you're on the app and that goes for anything really right, particularly with social media. If you're seeing the same things over and over again, that discernment kicks in. You're like, okay, this one is just trying to get one over.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Yeah, that makes perfect sense though. Yeah, and before I'll ever go on the next door and ask everybody else to help, I always contact the person personally. I get involved with them personally, ask them to explain the situation, ask them. Okay, if you're asking for the community to come together and help you with a utility payment right now, what do you do about your utility payment next month? What steps are you taking to remedy that situation so that you're not back on here every month? Right, and if they're needing a job, well, why are you just asking for a utility payment? Let me see if I can get you a job. Are you willing to work?

Speaker 2: 18:41

And then, if they're not willing to work, well, that tells me something there too, yeah, so you do some vetting, you definitely do some vetting there to make sure that this isn't. You know it's going to worthy causes. You know it's going to two worthy causes.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Yeah Well, like the people that I'm helping right now with this house recovering from this house fire, when I saw that post and I got it, I got started talking to them personally. I found out where the house was. I went over and looked at it myself, I did some research on it, found out that, yes, their, their families, own that house since 1958. It's been in their families for 66 years. And so you know, know, I found out all that, uh, this man's this man and his brothers actually owned the house. Uh, that it was deeded to them when their parents died. And, uh, but both of his brothers are in. They're in dire straits also, so they really can't help him that much. So that's why I jumped in. I in, I've met both of his brothers.

Speaker 1: 19:36

So, I know neither one of them can actually help a lot. So one of his brothers has helped some in getting the cleanup to the point it is right now. But I just, you know I do vet the people, call them up, talk to them, go over and talk to them. Before I ever ask people for help.

Speaker 2: 19:52

That's so terrific. So, since we're talking about this family, let's talk a little bit about how people can help, how people can actually help this specific family, and then we'll kind of stretch that out into the more general, broad sense. So how can we help this family?

Speaker 1: 20:07

Okay, well, right now, like I said, we already have the electricals taken care of, we've got the plumbing taken care of, we've got the HVAC taken care of. We don't have cabinets yet. We don't have windows yet and they are in the Tampa area where they're required to have hurricane rated windows. So the windows are very expensive. I don't have anybody to provide the windows yet. I have a general contractor that's talking about it, but I haven't heard from them yet for sure.

Speaker 1: 20:36

So we still need money for cabinets, for windows, for drywall insulation. I've got a painter that's going to help us through the painting process. There's some exterior trim that needs to be done. So right now I said the GoFundMe page is right at about $12,000. We need about another $14,000 for all of that stuff to be taken care of. Okay, and we're going to make sure we'll put that link in.

Speaker 2: 21:00

We'll put that link in the show notes too, so you'll be able to click it and go right to it.

Speaker 1: 21:03

Okay, the people are very appreciative of every they will. Normally on the on the GoFundMe page. They are able to go onto their GoFundMe page and send a note to everybody that donates, unless you donate anonymously. So if they're able to, they'll send a thank you to everybody that donates because they're very appreciative. They know that they would have no chance of keeping that house and the family if it weren't for this effort chance of keeping that house in the family, if it weren't for this effort.

Speaker 1: 21:37

They've already gotten a couple of offers from house flippers that want to buy it for less than half of what it's worth when it's finished and then they'll put the $40,000 into it or $60,000 into it and sell it for a $40,000 profit. So they've already got a couple offers to do that. They just don't want to sell the house and take a loss on it. I mean, really, if they could, if they can fix it up for the $25,000 that I think we can get it done for that now and then it's worth $220,000. Well, look what that's done for them. So we're we're really hoping to get some more donations to the GoFundMe page. If you happen to be in the Tampa market and you can provide windows or drywall, they still need donations for windows and drywall cabinets and some trim work.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Amazing. I just love just the image I get of communities helping each other out like that or helping their, their people in the communities, and this is obviously a case of that, and you know, just my heart goes out to them too, because I'm thinking about, and I've been, you know. So I'm so grateful. I've never experienced a house fire like that, that kind of loss, and you know, if you pause for a minute and think about that it's. You know, you have a lifetime of memories stored in your home and all of those things are gone. You can't get those things back, but for this family at least they get to stay in their home, the home that they've had, you know, and that they love, obviously. So that is great.

Speaker 1: 23:08

One thing about it when we were doing the cleanup going through all, I mean throwing away most of their stuff. Going through all, I mean throwing away most of their stuff the lady told me that she had taken off her rings, including her wedding band, and put it in a cup by their chair in the room where the fire started. It was just totally ashes.

Speaker 2: 23:34

Mm, hmm.

Speaker 1: 23:35

So one day I went over to the house and I just decided well, somebody's got to do this. So I got down on my hands and knees and all the ash and mess and muck and went through there, one handful at a time, until I found one of her rings.

Speaker 2: 23:49

Oh, that's amazing yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:51

And then her husband went through and he found he found the other one. Oh wow. But she just had to spend the, be willing to get down there in it and find it Right. But you just had to spend the be willing to get down there in it and find it Right. Well, I want to tell you one other thing.

Speaker 1: 24:01

The one thing that motivates me to do this is that back during the recession of 2008, I lost my job and I was in construction. Lost my job, I was out of work for 13 months. Lost my job, I was out of work for 13 months. I did find one job in the middle of that, but it was 13 months on, each spread out over a two-year period. That's rough, and through that time, I was about to lose my house and I contacted people in churches that I knew. A lot of people will say well, go to the 501c3s, they can all help. Go to Habitat for Humanity, go to United Way. All of these people have such a long vetting process and application process. These people that need help that I'm talking about that I've been helping lots of times they can't wait for that. They can't wait for help, for a utility payment. Their utilities are going to be shut off Friday.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Yeah, it's an immediate need. Yeah, and you know what better way to go direct like this. It's just such a brilliant idea.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Well, sometimes on the utility payments, I would have somebody just call up and say I'll pay the utility payment. You just tell me their address, I'll call up the utility company and pay it. But the thing that motivated me was I was in this situation where I was about to lose my house and I contacted one friend who has a lot of email contacts I mean hundreds, right, he sent out an email to all these people that don't know me and I don't know them, people that don't know me and I don't know them. And we started getting checks in from all over the country From people that we don't know Never have known, never will meet them, but they helped us through that very difficult time.

Speaker 1: 25:52

So that's what's happening right now on Nextdoor Is, if you're, if people that are watching this are going to go on the Nextdoor, they're going to help this family that will never know them, they'll never meet them, but they can just be assured that they're going to be helping this family through some really difficult time.

Speaker 2: 26:11

And I think this is such a great incentive for people in general to use apps like this and their community pages. I hope this is like a ripple effect. I hope you have a lot of copycats.

Speaker 1: 26:23

We're going to call you the original you're the OG, but they you know.

Speaker 2: 26:27

We want a lot of copycats of people using this same model and same concept.

Speaker 1: 26:32

So people from all over the country are going to see this today and I hope they will go onto their. Go on to the app store and find the next door app, upload it onto their phone or their tablet and they can do the same thing, exactly the same thing. It's just so easy. And if they need to, if you have somebody that's that's that's watching the day that wants to do that, I hope you'll have a link to me so they can contact me if they want to.

Speaker 2: 26:59

You read my mind I was going to. That was the very next thing I was going to ask you for how we can connect people with you so that they can, you know, just get involved and be involved and maybe pick your brain too, so they can do the same. So what's the best way for them to reach you? We'll put that in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 27:15

They're welcome to email me. Welcome to email me, welcome to email me, and that'll make an initial contact and then I can kind of walk them through how to address that. If they want to go on the next door, if they're on next door and they see somebody that needs some help, I can kind of tell them how to approach that and make that happen.

Speaker 2: 27:30

That is perfect. Wayne Tomlinson, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this story. It's so eye-opening and heartwarming and I'm so glad that we finally got to connect and do this, and I hope everyone watching helps out any way that you can.

Speaker 1: 27:45

If somebody tries to do this in their neighborhood, they are going to be surprised as to how many people are willing to help if they just have an avenue to do that and this presents an avenue to everybody in your neighborhood. If you want to help this couple, you can help.

Speaker 2: 28:02

I love it. I absolutely love it. This is such a great story in pretty dark times that we're having. So, thank you again, and you are welcome to come back anytime. Anytime you got a story to share and update any of those things. You got an open invite to come back anytime, even if it's a political statement, sure, why not Listen? I'm easy going, even if it's the opposite of what I think. I'm cool with that. All right, because we're civilized, that's right. Yes, wayne, thank you again and, guys, thanks for watching. We will see you in the next episode, take care. Thank you very much again and guys, thanks for watching. We will see you in the next episode, take care.