MILWAUKEE — It is a day that the staff at Welfare Warriors remember vividly. The day a car crashed into the side of their building in Milwaukee's Merrill Park Neighborhood.
Related | Families, volunteers devastated after car runs into Milwaukee nonprofit
"When I saw the hole in the wall, I had a pain in my stomach like someone stabbed me," said Amada Morales, a family advocate with Welfare Warriors.
Debris piled up and the team was forced to board up the hole in the side of the building.
TMJ4 was there that day and spoke to Morales. The organization that helps mothers in poverty across the city was now in need of help of its own.
Some in the community stepped up after seeing the story on social media. A local contractor quoted them at a discount of tens of thousands of dollars to fix the damage.
"We came in substantially lower than any other contractor, but at the same time, it's what they do," said Matthew Foeckler, from Crown Masonry. He worked with Julio Quiroz and QRRC to make the discount happen. "It's the service they provide to the community, so someone had to step up. It was us."
Through a GoFundMe, donations from Brewery Credit Union, and hard work, they beat the odds. The project came out under budget, and ahead of schedule.
The support has meant the world to Morales.
"It's an inclination to keep going," She told TMJ4.
That drive to keep going might pay off for people like Joanne Perez, who volunteers at Welfare Warriors. She does so because, according to her, CPS took custody of her grandchildren, and Welfare Warriors helped the family regain custody.
"I want to cry now because if this place wasn't here today, I wouldn't have my grandkids back," Perez told TMJ4.
Watch: Welfare Warriors back in building three months after it was struck by a car
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