PORT ANGELES — Amber Keebler and Tim Mason know the ravages of homelessness.
Buoyed by their faith and the promise they saw in a life on the North Olympic Peninsula, the couple and their 3-year-old twins travelled earlier this year from the mean streets of Huntsville, Ala., to what they discovered were the beckoning byways of Port Angeles.
Barely one-tenth the size of Huntsville, Port Angeles opened its arms to the family, Keebler and Mason said this week.
In this season of giving and acceptance, Keebler, 27, and Mason, 33, are giving back without compensation, returning the kindnesses that have come their way.
The couple is soliciting requests from needy residents through their Facebook page and giving out donated food, clothing, hygiene products and other items for free, without question, through their Facebook group, Clallam County Community Outreach.
And the giving did not stop this holiday time, thanks to Toys for Tots.
Keebler and Mason had enough donated food, clothes and presents for eight families but not the 20 children who still lacked gifts.
So they teamed up with the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program for Christmas presents for needy children.
It was part of Toys for Tots’ efforts in collecting about 6,000 toys, or two gifts for each of about 2,900 children, through 21 agencies, program coordinator Eric Miner said this week.
That’s up from about 2,700 children and 5,700 toys in 2013, Miner said.
For the longer term, Keebler and Mason have pledged to collect free clothing and other household goods for those in need that they will distribute from a garage packed on Christmas Eve with goods at 103 E. Sixth St., where they are renting a home.
The couple will distribute items from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, and after that, from noon to 4 p.m. every third Saturday of the month through their outreach group, which is not a registered nonprofit organization.
“I believe you have to have a building first,” Keebler said.
“Right now, we’re not really in a position to afford a building of our own.”
Mason and Keebler talked of their 2,600-mile odyssey from Hunstville to Port Angeles as they stood in their garage on Christmas Eve, surrounded by dresses on hangars and furniture end tables crammed into corners.
Mattresses leaned against a wall.
Plastic Alberto VO5 hair-product bottles were neatly arrayed on a shelf, ready for the taking.
Dozens of donors have given the couple goods as they seek to give back the goodness they’ve received, they said.
If anything, Huntsville was the anti-Port Angeles.
For one thing, there was racial blowback the couple had to deal with: Keebler is white, while Mason is African-American.
“We’re not used to walking down the street and seeing people smile at you,” Keebler said.
“If you don’t have people yelling racial remarks at you, you have people trying to shoot you or trying to sell you drugs,” Keebler said, adding his children “have been called the ‘n’ word” in the southern city.
“We got kicked out of church for being interracial.”
Her children, Zachary and Kennedy, also could not go outside to play for fear of violence.
“People were constantly shooting at each other, fighting, there were broken crack pipes, it was awful, it was a really bad situation,” she recalled.
In Huntsville, where she said she became homeless after her mother committed suicide, meeting Mason was key to her own personal revival, she said.
“I lost my mother and a part of my mind,” she said.
As they became best friends, they also became partners, she said.
After applying for housing in 22 states, she said the couple moved in the spring to Port Angeles, hoping to obtain an apartment through the Peninsula Housing Authority.
Keebler and Mason had never seen a waterfall or snow-capped mountains in nature before they moved to the Peninsula, Keebler said.
Mason had $89 to his name.
“We had a hotel room, each other and the clothing on our backs,” Keebler said.
After efforts to obtain housing through the housing authority fell through, the family stayed for two months at Evergreen Village, run by Serenity House.
“The community helped us with a home and a car,” Keebler said.
Mason got a job as a delivery driver, and they rented a house on East Sixth Street.
Keebler, who refers to Mason as her husband — “We plan on getting married soon,” she said — started the Facebook page about three months ago and answers requests messaged through the page.
“I started it because my husband and myself and our 3-year-old twins moved here with absolutely nothing,” she said.
After they moved to Port Angeles, “we helped as many people as we could that were homeless,” she added.
“We always liked to help people, so we started this [Facebook] group.
“In starting it, we’ve been able to reach out to so many people, even more families than we could imagine.”
The Facebook page has a distinctly religious theme, with hands clasped in prayer as the profile illustration.
But the group serves anyone in need.
“We go to church every Sunday,” Keebler said.
“That is the basis of our group, that you treat others as you want to be treated.”
As they distribute items to the needy, the only thing Keebler and Mason want answered of their clients is this: Do you need what we have?
“If they say they need it, then we trust people on their word.
“People trusted us.
A former gang member and crack addict, Mason has been molested and beaten up — but not beaten down.
“He went from a pretty, what you would expect in a man raised on the streets, a thug, to a family man, a dedicated man with a good job, a hard worker,” Keebler said.
This Christmas marks a milestone in Mason’s adult life.
It’s the first time in well over a decade that he is truly free, he said — free, that is, of probation or other court obligations for such crimes as assault and writing bad checks.
“No matter what you go through, know your worth,” Mason advised.
“Know who you are regardless of what people say.
“If you are not happy with your life, do something about it. It’s as simple as that.
“Anybody can change if you give them a chance.”
Through Clallam County Community Outreach, he and Keebler this holiday season are helping others do exactly that.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
