HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A Hollywood Police officer’s act of kindness to the family of four he found living in a U-Haul truck over the weekend has given way to an outpouring of support from the community.
When Hollywood Police Officer Arnold Campbell first crossed paths with Audrey Cleare, Saturday, she and her family were out of money and sleeping in the truck’s cab. “My dad was here,” Cleare told a 7News crew as she pointed at the passenger seat. “My two girls would sit in the middle, and I was in the driver’s seat, as far as sleeping.”
Three days later, 7News cameras captured Cleare and her daughters, Zipporah and Elayzia, as they moved into their new home at the Broward Outreach shelter. “Let me show you around,” an employee told Cleare as she and her daughters followed him inside.
It has been a long and arduous journey for Cleare, her daughters and her father Richard, a U.S. Marine veteran. They had left their home in Georgia, where Cleare had been unable to find work, and they were driving back to their hometown of Hallandale.
On Monday, Campbell and other fellow Hollywood Police officers got them temporarily set up at the Adobe Hacienda Motel. “If anybody would have told me that this would have been how we would have lived, I would have never thought that it would have been like this,'” said Cleare.
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Since the story aired, Monday night, help has been pouring in, from donations to gift cards.
When the owner of Jack’s Diner, which has been in Hollywood since the 1950s, found out what the family was going through, he also lent a helping hand. “He loves to help out wherever he can,” said Emily Grenier with the diner. “If there’s someone on the side of the road, he’ll go out there and give them a meal.”
Cleare and her loved ones now have more than a week’s worth of meals at the diner.
Cleare said she’s grateful for all the generous gestures. “It’s a blessing, I mean, that everyone is putting their hands together just to help me and my little family,” she said.
As her daughters prepare to go back to school, Cleare said she will find work. It’s a second chance for the family, thanks in large part to the Hollywood Police Department.
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