Moses Lake family organizes donation run for fire victims

MOSES LAKE - Cole Brumet and his family were planning to go camping last weekend. Then Cole saw the pictures of the damage caused by the fires that roared through Okanogan County Wednesday and Thursday.

Cole Brumet works the graveyard shift, and he called his mom Vicki when he got off work Friday morning. "He said, 'Mom, we've got to do something,'" Vicki Brumet said.

The plan, in fact, was for Cole and his fiancee, Tristen Cafferty, to head out to the campsite Friday morning, said his sister Carisa. But Cole and Tristen had changed their plans. "We decided we weren't going to go camping," Carisa said.

Instead the three organized a food, clothing and personal supplies drive. Carisa contacted the Chelan County PUD, who sent her in the right direction, and "we had it all over Facebook," she said. That post pretty much went viral.

Carisa works at Starbucks, and parked her truck outside to hold donations. Before she got off work Friday afternoon the truck was filled two and a half times, she said. Her regular customers would come by and ask about the truck; when they heard what the family was doing, they would go buy something and donate it, she said. "Throughout the whole day my phone was just buzzing like crazy," Carisa said, people asking questions and wanting to know where they could leave donations.

There was so much response that Cole and Carisa decided to set up a donation station Friday evening. "We had six trucks lined up and a blue canopy tent," she said. Donations came from all over, from a family in Warden with a truck full of baby furniture and supplies, an Ephrata family with a truckload, donations from the crew at the Soap Lake Fire Department.

The donations included 80 cases of bottled water, and "I can't tell you how many boxes of cereal. And six tubs of baby supplies," Vicki said.

The family got so many donations that "by the time I got back to the house my entire driveway was full," Carisa said.

"We were out until 10:30 at night, sorting," Vicki said. When they were done the load filled six pickups, two hauling filled trailers, and two jeeps, she said. "You name it, we had it," she said.

"So many people came," Vicki said.

The caravan headed out Saturday morning, destined for Chelan. But the shelter there had "no more space for anything else and way too many volunteers," Carisa said. So they were diverted to Brewster.

The road took them right through Pateros, where the fire had destroyed a good chunk of the town Thursday night. The aftermath was sobering. "There were homes that were still on fire and power poles lying in the street," Carisa said.

The caravan reached Brewster just as the electricity was restored at the Columbia Cove Recreation Center, and the operators were still working on getting open, Carisa said. So the caravan crew started sorting the load, getting tables set up, playing with the kids, and Vicki and a couple of the rec center workers cooked a pot of spaghetti for lunch, Carisa said.

The Brumet family isn't done with their volunteer efforts. They've been told about a family whose house was destroyed, and plan to keep helping them, Carisa said.