Season of Sharing helps Venice family enduring car repairs and a broken AC

Well before this year's floods and high winds, Mary Bett Hockensmith’s life was impacted by fire.

Late one night in November 2017, the 25-year-old started getting frantic text messages from Aaron Stahl.

She had become friends with him the year before when Aaron, a family friend, had thrown a party at his house in Venice for the Fourth of July.

Now, the text messages included photos of that same house fully engulfed in flames.

Mary Bett stared in horror at her phone, feeling helpless in her home state of Kentucky, where she had fled from Florida with her husband and two small children ahead of Hurricane Irma.

“I’m beside myself,” she recalled of that night. “I was heartsick for my friend.”

Mary Bett remained awake with worry long after she was assured that Aaron got his daughter, roommates and pets out of the house to safety. There was no way for her to know, however, that her fate, too, would someday be wrapped up in the fallout from that fire.

One thing was clearer than ever...

Read the full story on the Herald-Tribune.