When the waters breached the banks of the Elbow River in June 2013, a 102-year-old home belonging to Jocelyn Rempel and her husband was submerged. The couple had purchased the Erlton property mere months before the historic flooding.
Displaced from her home, Rempel and her sister Amy, the co-owners of the Farm Girls food truck, took their mobile restaurant to the hardest hit areas of the city and provided hundreds of flood victims and volunteers with free meals.
The damage to the Erlton home, which includes a destroyed foundation, was not covered by insurance and negotiations with the Disaster Recovery Program continue.
Marvin DeJong, the owner of design firm DeJong Design Associates Ltd., heard of Rempel’s selfless acts and rewarded the couple with a no-charge home design to assist with their efforts to rebuild.
“At first I was like, ‘Yeah, but what do you want from me’,” recalls Rempel of DeJong’s offer. “He's like, ‘Nothing, I want nothing, I just want to do this for you, because I want to help out because I think I can do that for you’”
“It was the one thing that gave us hope through this whole thing, because everything else has been extremely traumatizing.”
The estimated value of DeJong's gift is $25,000.
Demolition of the century-old residence on 27 Ave. S.W. began Monday morning. Rempel and her husband hope to move in to their new home by summer 2015.
