Thankful La Pine sisters receive new home with smiles

NewsChannel 21 has been following a story about the La Pine community coming together to help three homeless sisters find a place to live. On Saturday, those women got to see their new donated home.

Since June, Sherrell, Karen and Sandra Stuart have been living in their red Ford Focus, often in the La Pine Library parking lot, for several months.

Subtle smiles grew across their faces as the Stuart sisters explored their new home.

La Pine community members started a GoFundMe page on Monday to buy a trailer for the sisters. After just five days, the page raised nearly $5,000. The trailer cost about $3,500.

The sisters plan on using some of the leftover money to buy new clothes, which they haven’t been able to do in years.

The trailer is equipped with an oven, a microwave, a bed and a couch, among other things. It wasn’t the new toys they were looking forward to most, though.

“Not being cramped in,” Sandra Stuart said.

“The cramped-ness, and let’s face, it our feet got a little cool, a little cold,” Sherrell Stuart said.

The sisters agreed they are happy to have this extra space to themselves. They also wanted to make it clear they’re extremely thankful to the La Pine community for coming together to find them a new home.

The sisters told NewsChannel 21 they hadn’t opened up to family about their situation because they don’t have any phones, and their relatives don’t live in the area.

One family member recently found out, and he plans on organizing a family meeting on Monday to discuss what to do moving forward.