Love Thy Neighbor: Reverend Organizes Community to Rebuild Neighbors Roof

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter.  

After a tree fell on Jeffery Hughes’ roof nearly destroying his home, his neighbor organized the community to save his home. 

It was a quiet Sunday in Peoria, Illinois southside when the sound of a tree crashing into Jeffery Hughes’ roof shook up the neighborhood. His next-door neighbor, Reverend Irene Lewis-Wimbley, was woken up from her nap. She told WMBD, “It was really scary that Sunday morning when we heard the boom.”  

Irene found her neighbor standing outside of his house in a daze, his house near destroyed. Jeffery told WMBD, “You could hear the tree coming down, like someone had dropped a tank or something and it vibrated the whole house.” 

Irene knew the house would be ruined if the roof couldn’t get repaired and organized a plan to save it. “The house would have been a total loss,” said Irene, “just another statistic of the 700 and some empty lots and dilapidated homes on the south side.” After stopping the city from condemning the house, Irene started a GoFundMe for Jeffery.   

Irene is the director of a Community Development Corporation, the South Side Community Center, which will officially launch June 1, 2021. “We are here to transform the community one relationship at a time,” Irene told WMBD. “And then this happened literally in my front yard. We want to take on properties and develop them for first-time homebuyers that are going through our program called ‘Pathway of Hope.’” 

Central Illinois Veteran’s Warriors, along with some of Irene’s church friends in the community, set out to rebuild Jeffery’s roof for free. “We have a whole group of about 30-plus veterans on our team and we try to look for any opportunity to help out our veteran community as much as possible.”  

The money from the GoFundMe helped the volunteers build out the new roof, but Irene says they still need $5,000. You can help bring Jeffery home by donating to his GoFundMe.  

Do you know of someone in the industry who is ‘doing good deeds’ in their community? Help us catch them at it. Send news and information to info@rooferscoffeeshop.com. 

Photo source: WMBD