Master Sergeant Norling, wife Shelly and children Aaron, 16, and Rachel, 15, lost nearly everything on May 21, 2011, when a tornado ripped through their small Kansas hometown of Reading. Fortunately, everybody in their family was safe and unharmed. Unfortunately, the family completely lost their home, almost all of their possessions, and two of their vehicles.
Jeff is a true hero in every sense of the word; as is his family through their support and understanding as he leaves for long periods of time for deployments halfway around the world. In particular, Jeff deployed as a medical technician to Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2009. In addition to his almost 17 years of military service in the Army and Air National Guard, Jeff is also a 10 plus year veteran Trooper in the Kansas Highway Patrol.
Living in a rural part of the state, reliable transportation is critical to the family. Both Jeff and Shelly work outside of Reading. Shelly alone has a 70 mile roundtrip for her job. Aaron and Rachel are both extremely active in extracurricular activities and attend school outside of the community as well, which is a 30 mile roundtrip.
The family has many times they have to be in three places at the same time to meet their activities and obligations. they are down to one old truck to get all four of them around. Jeff’s biggest concern right now is the future and how to make ends meet as they try to replace their home, their belongings and their vehicles. While the family will eventually try to replace both vehicles, he feels that just one right now would give the family so much flexibility and allow them to focus their finances on other essential needs like housing, clothing and utilities.
Thank you in advance for considering this application. Jeff emailed me and to quote him, "Even if this does fall through, and does not end up with a result in our favor, it is simply awesome that there is a program such as this to help any one of us in this situation."
We will Call him on 101.1 the Fox Monday morning ant 6:50 am to tell him the good news