Kid raises money for Guardsman after fire

EAST PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (WABC) -- The door to Eric Carver's home is chained shut now, after a fire destroyed virtually everything inside just two days after Christmas.

Master Sergeant Eric Carver wasn't home. He's serving in the Air National Guard, right now deployed in Africa.

He may have been helpless in this situation, but not to worry, he has friends to help.

"All he's done for us in this community, he's always the first one there for everything," said Thomas Roach, neighbor.

10-year-old Thomas Roach decided to pitch in. First, he gave up all the money he'd just gotten for Christmas two days earlier.

"He was going to use his Christmas money that he received to buy the bracelets and sell them to the neighbors to try and raise money," said Patricia Sitler, neighbor.

Roach has raised more than $3,500 to help rebuild Carver's house in a week, and he's still going.

"How does that make you feel that people responded to your idea like that?" Eyewitness News asked.

"Excited, because I'm like, raising a lot of money for him," Thomas Roach said.

"A few tears, I was so proud of him," said Debbie Roach, Thomas' mother.

Carver will have a lot of work to do on his home when he returns in a few weeks, but not as much as he would have had to do, and now he'll have a little financial head start thanks to his friends in the neighborhood.

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