Good Samaritans donate building material and labor after woman’s home hit by car

BATON ROUGE – General contractor Herbert Jones and several of his friends donated their labor and materials to fix Arabella Robinson’s Baton Rouge home. 

“We felt bad. Me and my guys over here, we started thinking about it and we said that we were going to come over here and help,” Jones said. 

Robinson is 88 years old and her home was damaged Friday when a suspect posing as a police officer smashed their car into her home while trying to outrun BRPD officers. 

Robinson was sitting in her front room when the car hit her house at 2 a.m. 

“My aunt, where she was sitting, could have gotten killed. I know she has a guardian angel,” Robinson’s niece Jackie Foster said. 

The crash caused thousand of dollars in damages, but Jones and the other contractors are also paying for a place for Robinson to stay while the repairs are being done. The wreck left the home unlivable. 

“She’s an older lady and I’m not getting a reward, I’m just doing it out of the kindness of my heart,” Jones said. 

“I have always been afraid of snakes and I was afraid a snake would come in,” Robinson said. 

The crash was not Robinson’s first brush with disaster. During Hurricane Ida, two trees fell on top of her home, trapping her inside. 

“Her house was covered. You couldn’t tell that a house was there. The fire department had to come and rescue her out of here,” Foster said. 

Now that help has arrived, Robinson is at a loss for words.

“I’m just so overwhelmed, I’m so happy,” Robinson said. 

Contractor’s can’t say how long the repairs will take, but it should be a quick job with all of them chipping in their materials and time.