One year ago, on October 28, seven students from the University of South Carolina and Clemson University were killed in a fire at a family's vacation beach home in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Out of this terrible tragedy the Ocean Isle 7 Foundation was formed to educate others about fire safety and to help those in need following a fire.
Inspired by a story told by Congressman Jim Clyburn during the recent launch of National Campus Fire Safety Month in Washington, DC, the Foundation is holding a bike-a-thon to raise funds to help fire victims called "Project Albert".
You can read more about this project and participate in the bike-a-thon by being a supporter at the Foundation's website at http://www.oceanisle7foundation.org/.
However, the following is a brief clip from the website about Project Albert: What is the "Albert Project"? The Albert Project was inspired by a kind act of one young boy to another whose family had lost all they owned in a house fire in Sumter, SC.
When Albert gave his new jacket to his twelve-year-old neighbor -- who, on that day nearly fifty years ago, had been suddenly left with only the clothes on his back -- neither imagined that the recipient, James Clyburn, would, decades later, represent South Carolina's sixth congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But Albert would probably not be surprised to learn that James Clyburn would pass on a similar gesture of kindness to the students of the University of South Carolina when they lost six classmates to a deadly house fire in Ocean Isle Beach.
By supporting fire safety legislation at the national level, Rep. Clyburn and the five other congressional representatives from SC are doing what responsible and caring people do: they help to avert crisis and disasters before they take place.
Again, if anyone is interested in participating or supporting a rider, please visit the website http://www.oceanisle7foundation.org/.
