A few months ago I started noticing a friendly guy pushing a stroller around on Dodson Avenue when I would come to work. After he was featured on the local news, I found out that he was homeless, but didn't want to be. A great local businessman Jeff Fenwick from National Pharmacy decided to put together a GoFundMe account to help hiim out. Please read below and them give if you can. If you can't give, you can help by sharing this info on your Facebook Page and maybe we can get him the money he needs to get into housing.
I am Jeff Fenwick, I own and operate National Family Pharmacy in Fort Smith Arkansas. I am setting up this go fund me account for a homeless man named Gary Crawford. Several people have expressed interest in helping him get housed. We could raise money for housing and would help manage this account for him. Here is his story, thanks FORT SMITH (KFSM) -- Jeff Fenwick is a pharmacist at National Family Pharmacy on Dodson Avenue in Fort Smith. He said he got to know a homeless man named Gary Crawford after he kept seeing him push a stroller past his store front. "I knew Gary from years ago. He would come down here to the pharmacy and come through to get medicine for some people that lived with him," Fenwick said. "That's how I got to know him. He was a hardworking guy so what I would do is I would go pick him up. He would do the weed eating for me while I would mow my rental property lawns." In the last year, Crawford became homeless. Fenwick has been following the controversial panhandling issue in Fort Smith. City leaders implemented an ordinance after they said an excessive number of panhandlers kept turning up on street corners around the city. The ordinance will move the panhandlers away from intersections due to safety concerns. "I said 'Gary, I don't know if they're really homeless or not but I know you are. Why don't you go down there and see what you can make in a day?' He looked at me. He was kind of insulted and he said, 'hell, I work for a living,'" Fenwick said. Crawford said he is treated for severe burns on one of his legs. He is disabled and walks with a severe limp due to hip, back and a knee problem. Despite his disability he refuses to take a handout and even though he doesn't work in a traditional sense, he does have a job. "Sometimes I make $5, $10, $15, $20 a day. Sometimes I make $50 a day. It all depends on what I find," Crawford said. Crawford turns trash into cash. He has mapped out a dumpster route that he walks five days a week. He discovered value in things he finds in the trash. Most days he walks anywhere from three to 10 miles. The route takes him around a portion of Fort Smith and then to scrap metal yards. Crawford knows how much aluminum, metal and copper can bring at the scrap yard. "I think a person ought to get out and try to make an effort. It ain't hard to do. Just get a pound of cans. A bag full will you get you a hamburger and french fries," he said. Crawford sleeps under a tarp in a local neighborhood, but he doesn't plan to be homeless forever. He said he plans to make enough money collecting scraps in his dumpster route to put a deposit down on a rent home. "Yeah, I got a plan," he said. Help spread the word!
https://www.gofundme.com/homeless-gary-crawford-housing-fund