Country singer Jason Hastie and his wife Gina gave away their southwest home to a High River couple and handed over the keys on Wednesday.

Dave and Verna Roberts lost their original, 100-year-old house in the High River floods last June.

They jumped at the chance to apply when the Hasties posted their home for free on kijiji because they wanted to build a new home on their Killarney lot.

About 2000 people sent inquiries and the Roberts were the lucky winners.

“We asked for one personal reference and one work reference from each family and the Roberts had gotten together and had gotten us a hundred reference letters and that really, I think that really showed to us how much they really wanted the house and the amount of support that they had around them, friends and family, we just thought that was incredible,” said Jason Hastie.

The Roberts say they are grateful for some good news as their son was killed last year as well.

 “Then this house came up and this changed our life forever. Jason and Gina are just fantastic people,” said Verna.

“Just all the things that have happened this past year, you know, we weren’t expecting this really with everything that’s happened we honestly, maybe thought that there was some other family that was in more need or was going to be picked and we would have been happy for them, honestly, because there are so many families affected, not just us. We’ve had a lot of personal tragedy but we’re a strong family,” said Dave.

Jason says they knew they were making the right decision when they met the High River couple and heard their story.

“The loss of their son in a car accident six months before they lost their house, I think that probably, you know, now that we’ve got a baby girl, you hear that the worst thing that a person could go through in life is the loss of one of their children and for them to have lost their son, and he was actually working on their house, doing renovations with them, helping them out, and then six months later to lose their house too, I just think nobody would really want to go through that,” said Hastie.

The Hasties kicked in $1000 to move the house and the home movers, Holmes Building Movers in Stavely, donated the rest of the costs.

The home was prepped for the move on Wednesday and will be on the road on Friday morning.

It will then wait on the Roberts’ lot for a few months while they get their old home demolished.

The Hasties say they are now great friends and they can’t wait to visit the Roberts in their new home in High River.