Joanna Wiley was struggling to get by. She barely had enough money to live in Missouri, where she raised her 3-year-old daughter on her own. To make matters worse, there was a leak in the ceiling of her daughter’s bedroom, making it unsafe for her to sleep in that room at night.
Wiley’s pride often led her dependent on others, and that is how she found herself in such dire circumstances. So, she grabbed a ladder and some nails out of the shed and decided to fix her leaky roof herself. However, while she was climbing the ladder, she lost her balance and fell down below, injuring herself in the process.
After falling from her roof, Wiley received a traumatic brain injury that left her feeling exhausted and unable to do household tasks. Because she was receiving treatments for her brain injury in Missouri, she had to find additional funds to pay for the medical expenses that were adding up because of the expensive treatments.
To make matters worse, Wiley learned from the doctors treating her for a traumatic brain injury that she was also suffering from a life-threatening disease. If she wanted to see her daughter turn many more birthdays, she had to start treatment for thyroid cancer immediately.
Eventually, Wiley decided to swallow her pride and ask for help. She recorded a low-quality video asking for assistance and posted it on her Facebook page. Although she was seriously ill, she figured it was still important to get her roof fixed so her daughter could sleep at night without being disturbed by the rainwater leaking through the roof.
Six months went by and no one assisted the mother who was struggling. Her daughter still had to sleep under a leaky roof each night, with water coming down on her as she tried to rest.
Edwards Roofing and Repair, a small business out of Hillsboro, Missouri, wasn’t doing well until Edward Aguado showed up.
Wiley was not accustomed to asking for help, so at first, he did not trust Aguado.
“I was like: ‘Who is this Ed, what does he want?’” Wiley said, adding: “At first I thought it was a scam.”
The roofer was a kindhearted individual who wanted nothing more than to help the mother fix her roof.
“She’s literally sitting in there watching water pour into her daughter’s room so me and my sales guy Matt, we came up there, boarded it up, tapped it, and 3 days later I had a new roof on her house,” Aguado stated.
The roof repair that Aguado gave to the desperate mother for free cost $10,000.
“It makes it 100 percent worth it,” Aguado stated. “We’re glad we did it. I was in a position where I could help and I wanted to help. It was really as simple as that.”