Wheaton Woman, Daughter Are Angels of Mercy in Coal City

When 16 tornadoes swept through Illinois and northern Indiana on Sunday, Nov. 17, many were shocked at the devastation, particularly in downstate Coal City, where forecasters say three EF-3 twisters cut a swathe of destruction 13 miles long.

Washington, which is near Peoria, was flattened by a single EF-4 monster with winds up to 190 mph and whose path extended more than 46 miles through two counties, according to the National Weather Service.

Coal City caught the eye of Jennifer Guevara, a Wheaton mother of two.

“I was watching the news Sunday night and I saw Coal City and everything that happened,” she said. “I said, ‘Geez, that could have been us. It could have happened here. They need help.”

Even though she knew no one from the area, Guevara launched into action like a dynamo. An administrator for a Facebook page for Wheaton, Ill., parents, she put up a post Sunday evening stating that she was collecting items for Coal City. She said she made arrangements with those interesting in giving to drop their donations off at her home.

Not many contacted her Sunday night or early Monday, she said. But by the end of the day, Guevara said she had a small mountain of donations taking up about a quarter of the space in her living room.

“When my husband came home Monday night, he was terrified,” she laughed, recalling the size of the pile of supplies.

But that was only the start.

She originally had planned to drive the supplies down on Wednesday, and at first had planned to get a friend to drive down, too, so they would have two sport utility vehicles to carry the goods.

In the meantime, donations continued to arrive at her home.

Guevara worked nights Sunday From Wednesday last week, and when she wasn’t at work, she was laboring to sort and organize the donations.  By Wednesday, it already was apparent that two SUVs would not be large enough, so U-Haul dealers were called about donating the use of a trailer.

“By Thursday, our living room was jam-packed with supplies” ranging from toiletries to clothing to bedding to food and water to baby supplies and more, she said. Both she and her husband were amazed.

A Villa Park U-Haul dealer came to their assistance without hesitation, Guevara said, and on Thursday, they packed a trailer up and made off Coal City. She brought her daughter, 10-year-old Justice, and 5-year-old son Javier with her.

The trip was an eye-opener, especially for the children, she said. Before going down, “Intellectually, they understood what happened,” Guevara said. “But when they saw it with their own eyes, it was a real reality check for the kids.”

It also apparently fueled a spark that Jennifer’s compassion had ignited in Justice, a fourth-grader at Madison Elementary School in Wheaton. After their return home, she would lead her class in a second drive to raise donations for the tornado victims and which would send the family on a second trip to Coal City on Saturday.

On Thursday afternoon, the family arrived for the first time in Coal City, stopping at Coal City United Methodist Church to drop off their trailer-load of goods.

When they walked into the church, a woman and a man were talking about an urgent need for some baby supplies. “I said, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think I can help you.’”

That was her introduction to those coordinating the distribution of supplies to those affected by the twister outbreak, and they were happy to see Jennifer.

“They were so grateful and kind,” she said. “You wouldn’t even know (by their demeanor) that something like that had happened to them.”

“It was so amazing, we decided we had to go back on Saturday,” she said. “We gather up some more things and took them down.”

That included the supplies her daughter and classmates gathered.

“I want to say thank you to everyone in my Facebook group and to everyone who dropped off donations,” Guevara said.

She and her family went back down on Saturday to drop off more supplies, including those Justice and her classmates gathered.

Her kids, she said, want to do more.

“They keep saying, ‘We want to do something else. We want to do something,’” Guevara said. “And I’m keeping in contact with the church.”

This week, she said, her family may have opportunity to do so — there are days off school ahead.

The damage they saw left quite an impression on her children, she said. “We had talked about it before but they didn’t quite understand until they actually saw it firsthand,” she said.