The Story of Oxford
The Story of Oxford
February 2018. That is around the time that the hunt for the next House of Hope had begun. The next seven months that followed consisted of driving around just about every trailer park in Oakland county. Talking to countless office managers about the possibility of community events and youth nights. And walking through several trailers (getting attached to many of them). Along with those things, I learned that it is not as easy to purchase a trailer as I had thought.
I was SO SURE it was going to be in Auburn Hills...until it wasn't.
Then I was CERTAIN it was going to be in Clarkston. Again, wrong.
PONTIAC. IT IS IN PONTIAC. This park is perfect! Except it does not allow dogs...nexxxtttt.
After being excited and then disappointed time and time again, it became obvious that no one was going to sell us a trailer unless we had money to buy said trailer. Fair enough, right? So thus, began House of Hope's first step into fundraising...but fundraising can (and very well might be) an entire future blog post in itself.
As we started raising money with dreams of purchasing House of Hope round two, I stumbled upon Parkhurst Estates. By this point I thought I had already drove through every trailer park in the area, so out of curiosity, I plugged it into my GPS and decided to go check it out.
Once I started driving around, I almost immediately wrote the park off as being to high income to benefit from our services. Until I saw the trailer. It was the only one for sale that was even close to being within our price range., and coincidentally, it had everything on my list before I even saw the inside. A big beautiful tree (personal preference), a giant porch (a must have), and a large shed for storage.
Even though I had learned my lesson when it came to getting my hopes up, I could not help but get a little excited. I had been looking at trailers by myself in my free time for the most part and only showing Brooke the good ones. After all, she had an entire wedding to plan. But this one deserved to be shown off.
In the weeks following, we started eating lunch in the driveway and talking about how even if this was not THE trailer, one day soon we would find the next House of Hope and this would all be in the past.
We finally got enough money to buy the trailer outright, thanks to all of our incredible supporters, and went to the park office to buy it, only to find out that our beloved trailer had been sold JUST BEFORE WE WALKED THROUGH THE DOORS. She said that we could still fill out all the forms in case he did not meet requirements, but that our chances were slim, and we should probably keep looking. About a week later, I got a call. Thee call, actually.
The person who was planning on purchasing the trailer did not get the money together in time and we were next in line. At this point, the trailer, which was like $10,000 cheaper than the rest of the trailers that were for sale, should definitely have been purchased already. That fact alone, had me begging my boss to leave early and purchase my future home. Thank you, Jesus, that she is so amazing, because I then spent the next hour and a half (while I should have been working) claiming House of Hope Oxford and signing papers.
I was about to sign the final, official, home owning signature when the manager stopped me. "You have seen the inside of the trailer, right?". Boy, oh boy you should have seen this lady's face when I told her I was about to sign the papers without knowing what the actual trailer looked like. I was so confident that this had all played out according to God's plans that I did not need any further proof that this was the right place.
When she dragged me to the trailer, unlocked the doors, and revealed BUILT IN STORAGE SPACE in the living room and a FREAKING ISLAND in the kitchen, it was obvious that this was only the first of many stories to come.
And I cannot wait to hear them.
-Alyssa