Emmett Mauzy and his family had a tough time staying at the home of someone who he thought was a friend and needed to leave. As the Mauzy family approached its storage unit where all its possessions were stored, things went from bad to terrible to horrific.

Emmett and Mandy Mauzy, along with their three children, discovered everything they owned, of financial or sentimental value, was taken or destroyed.

“We wanted to salvage anything we could find,” Emmett said. “They pretty much wiped us out. They took our vacuum cleaner, toaster ovens, my sea bag and discharge papers from being in the Navy and took our disposable cameras that we had.

“Why would they take personal things that were ours?” He said. “I understand they took the Playstation; I understand they took the E-machine computer; I understand they took my leather jacket and cowboy boots — things that were some value, but not our personal things.”

Emmett Maudy is out of work; Mandy stays with their three daughters, ages 16, 7 and 5, as their teacher and mother. The troubles started when Emmett wasn’t able to continue with a trucking business he started with a friend, as he was unable to renew his commercial truck driver’s license due to back pay needed on child support for his son from a previous marriage.

The $36,000 in back child support pay, he says, accumulated because of the many medical problems that have kept him from getting work — degenerative disc disease, hernia, scar tissue from kidney stones and bad knees and elbows. Emmett Mauzy said he has been declined disability benefits three times.

Through all that though, he has managed to keep his family together for the last 18 years since he met Mandy. But now his license can’t be renewed, and he can’t get tags on his vehicle, which is still owned by a title loan company, so he can’t get to a job, and therefore can’t get money to keep his family sheltered.

“I’m trying to work, and I’ve been trying to work,” Emmett said. “If somebody has a low impact job that may not be strenuous they can give me to do or train me how to do it, I’ll be glad to do it. I have worked all my life and I worked hard labor jobs a lot.”

The five Mauzy’s were even living out of the storage unit Monday and Tuesday, when Fox 5 televised their story. Since then the community has stepped up to try and give the Mauzy’s a memorable Christmas — for the right reasons.
Good Samaritans have offered the Mauzy’s jobs, money, food and paid for them to stay at the Days Inn motel. Now, the Mauzy’s hope they can, with help, continue to provide shelter and food for their children and get their car on the road in order to get to work.

“We don’t have a dime to our name,” Emmett said. “If we get our car back up and running then we’ll get out there, get some hustle and get some money, and we’ll hold this family together. We don’t want to be separated.”