Marine Veteran Spurred by 9/11 to Serve Country Receives Vehicle Donation
Leroy Evans was in his Brooklyn high school, looking out the window, when he saw that one of the Twin Towers was on fire. He remembers his teacher telling him to sit down.
“Then I watched the plane hit the second building and all I could think was that my mother was over there,” he said.
Leroy’s mother worked close enough to the World Trade Center that she was coated with its dust, but she was physically unharmed. “She’s still going strong,” Leroy said.
That was a pivotal moment in his life. The second was when his wife, Shavonne, was pregnant with their first son. Leroy, recalling 9/11 and wanting to ensure his son would not have to fight the war on terror, enlisted in the Marines in 2008. He spent a year in Japan. While there, Shavonne stayed stateside with their son.
As his career in the military moved forward, Leroy was having difficulty with what he called the “wear and tear” of being a Marine. After 10 years, he honorably discharged in 2018.
The family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where Leroy now works as a truck driver after getting his commercial drivers license. He and Shavonne have four children—Daniel, 13, Jeremiah, 11, Gia, 9, and Gabriella, 7.
Everything was going well until Shavonne began having seizures. She had to quit her job, and medical bills were stacking up. One of their two cars was repossessed. The family now has only Leroy’s car, which can’t fit the whole family. If they want to take their kids somewhere, they have to decide who to take. For a recent trip to a local farm, they took their daughters.
A gift of a vehicle would be “life-changing,” Shavonne said. And when she heard from Operation Homefront that in partnership with the U.S. Bank Driven to Serve program the family would be receiving a donated vehicle, she could hardly believe it.
She was recovering from a surgery, and Leroy said that when she explained to him that they were getting a vehicle, he thought she was under the influence of the medication, the two recalled with a chuckle.
“I don’t even remember half the conversation (with OH),” Shavonne said. “I had trouble talking because my throat was so sore, and when she told us we were getting a family car I said, ‘Just know I’m screaming in my head.’ When I told my mom what happened, she screamed for me. We were so excited.”
Leroy said that when she told him, he was more worried about her resting than a car. Later, he realized what she meant.
“This will be such a big help,” Leroy said. “We greatly appreciate it.”
Shavonne and Leroy already have a list created of places they want to go as a family, especially now that they will not have to pay for Uber rides to get there.
“Thank you,” Shavonne said to the donors. “There’s a lack of words for the appreciation and love I felt from when I was told about this. This helps a great deal. I immediately told my husband we are going to the zoo, we are going to the aquarium, and back to the farm in Granbury (Texas) where we took my two daughters. Now we can take all four of the kids, and I know they will love it. This is just amazing.”
