A Washington father of eight and his twin sons are helping heat homes for the holidays by chopping and delivering firewood to veterans, the sick, and people who are down on their luck. The father’s winter mission started five years ago, and this season it’s stronger than ever.
Shane McDaniel, 51, owns a beer store in his hometown of Lake Stevens. He learned to split wood with his late father as a child and now has eight children of his own: Jack, 9, Mario, 12, Ellis, 13, Natalie, 14, Wyatt, 18, twins Henry and Harrison, 25, and Maddie, 26.
McDaniel told The Epoch Times that in the wet, cold Seattle area it is surprising how many people go without heat in the winter.
“I get lots of messages from people that are dying ... cancer patients, a lot of Vietnam War veterans,” he said. “There are a lot of tear-jerking stories. I usually have a volunteer read them because when we’re deciding who to give [firewood] to, it’s very emotional.”
McDaniel’s twin sons, Henry and Harrison, are his right hand men. Meanwhile, McDaniel’s younger children are involved in helping with deliveries.
Additionally, McDaniel has also welcomed around 500 volunteers from the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and local baseball and hockey teams to help with delivery.
The father of eight claims his biggest reward is his recipients’ gratitude.
“Not everybody breaks down in tears, but just a few of those that do is enough to really motivate you,” he said. “I think that when [the kids] see people crying on their porch in gratitude, it goes a long way. That’s why I’ve had hundreds of kids volunteer.”
A lot of McDaniel’s customers pass away between seasons, a sad insight into the suffering that exists behind closed doors. However, McDaniel himself is no stranger to sickness.
Between 2011 and 2018, he suffered from sickness every day and lost 70 pounds, all without a diagnosis. Doctors had believed that the sickness was due to nerve damage in his stomach and thus has planned to remove his stomach. However, McDaniel made a decision on his own to cut out processed foods and then noticed a change where he stopped getting sick.
“It was an allergy to soybean oil and it almost killed me,” he said.
Due to his sickness, McDaniel developed empathy for those who are sick.
It was a near-death experience in November 2018 that further propelled McDaniel to turn his empathy into action and start giving to others. During a diving lesson for himself and his kids at Puget Sound, along the northwestern coast of Washington, McDaniel nearly drowned.
“I was gone for 3 or 4 minutes and then revived,” he said. “I bled that day from my ears, mouth, and eyes, but the terror of drowning has left me a bit damaged, emotionally. I cried every day for a month. I never used to cry ... now I cry when I hear any stories of hardship or sadness.”
Within days of his near-drowning, McDaniel gave half of his possessions away and decided to gift all the wood that he had split to those in need.
That first winter, McDaniel donated six months worth of firewood.
By the following year, McDaniel’s community had caught wind of his project and began donating wood. McDaniel even received a donation from the local government of felled trees from a nearby park.
“Another arm of the city government didn’t like what I was doing,” McDaniel said. “They wrote me $70,000 a month in fines ... $500 a day for the ‘fire hazard.’”
Yet, with the support of his governor and local fire department, McDaniel proved his project complied with safety regulations and was allowed to continue. He upped the ante on wood chopping that year, amassing around 260 pickup truckloads of firewood.
“It was difficult to gauge, it was so much,” he said.
Over the years, the pile of wood has become a popular site for people to take selfies.
Since breaking two toes in a log splitter accident, McDaniel struggles with his balance and his back. But he doesn’t plan on stopping firewood donations any time soon.
Those who are in need of firewood contact him through Facebook or leave a message for him in his beer store. Those with pickup trucks usually collect their own wood, and McDaniel delivers only to people who cannot drive.
For the 2022 season, McDaniel has 30 cords (a pile 8 feet wide, 4 feet high) remaining, which amounts to 60 half-cords for 60 deserving recipients. When this winter is over, he will begin the cycle again in spring with his boys.
“There’s still people in the world that care for strangers,” he said.
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