When Lamar Harris’ family found out that he just weeks away from losing his treasured home, they knew they had to do something.
And Harris has a big family — almost his entire neighborhood, in fact.
Dubbed the “Mayor of Cherry Hill,” Harris is a special needs adult with the cognitive abilities of a preteen who lives alone in his Gloucester Township, New Jersey, home, the same place he has resided almost his entire life. But Harris isn’t entirely alone. He spends much of his time with the neighbors around him, cutting their grass, collecting their mail, calling them daily, and just generally spending time with residents of the street from which his nickname is derived.
When his self-described family found out he needed help to keep his home they banded together and worked to raise more than $50,000 to help him pay off almost all of his tax and interest payments and satisfy the lien.
Terri Fretz told CNN that she has known Harris since his family first moved into the neighborhood 38 years ago. Harris’ mother died when he was eight, his grandmother died when he was 12, his father died in 2015, and his brother died the following year. Fretz said Harris has lived alone since then.
“People don’t understand what this home means to him,” Fretz said. “He loves his home, and we will fight until the very end to keep him there.”
“He cannot drive. He does not understand finances and has a very limited reading ability. As a result of the death of his family members, his reading deficits, and his inability to understand finances, he has fallen behind in his property taxes,” Fretz wrote on the GoFundMe she set up for him. “There is no place like home. Please help Lamar save his.”
And people did help. Almost 1,000 people, most of them strangers, ended up donating after hearing about his story and the love he has for his neighbors. By Monday afternoon the page had raised about $65,000. In an update to the page, Fretz said the excess funds would be used to help Harris with his future needs and that the funds would be deposited into a bank account set up for him.
Fretz also said that she would be working with him to plan how to handle his future finances and save money from his part-time job at a grocery store where he has worked for the past two decades. The update thanked the multitude of good Samaritans who donated to the cause.
“We want to thank the hundreds of wonderful people who found room for Lamar in their hearts. You are all proof that kindness can make a difference in a person’s life in a big way,” it reads. “There is still good in the world. There is still hope for us all.”
