My most humble and sincere apology is in order to Reverend Charles for my error. Being new to the forums it appeared the quote was from him rather than another individual. I was mistaken and regret my error.
I am new to the forums. I have been reading this one for several weeks as well as the one about the 3000 watt Chinese generators. I only decided to join and submit my own comments yesterday.
I do not have a RV of any type. Camping is difficult for us to accomplish as the children are in school during the week and I am committed to one of my four small Charge churches on weekends. I do need a generator at our home since the severe weather in rural West Virginia last winter left us without electricity on several occasions for as long as a week. A recent search on Champion generators brought me to this forum. Please allow me to explain why I was searching for Champion generators.
I recently noted some degrading commentary targeted toward the company from contributors to this forum. I would kindly like to share a first hand story to show a different side of their business.
After Hurricane Katrina members of my Charge organized a relief team to respond to devastation in Mississippi. There we joined with other men and women from Methodist Churches from all over the country. We were broken into teams that traveled daily from a host Church shelter to help people in need of labor and materials to make their homes inhabitable. Our team was dispatched to an area where clean up and repair teams could make homes inhabitable by removing downed trees and repairing roofs. We were not assigned to the areas where homes were totally destroyed and flooded. The Methodist Church lead team we worked with owned a fully equipped trailer with every kind of tool imaginable to help with repairs. We had hundreds of donated blue tarps and shingle bundles to cover roofs along with dozens of chain saws and new chains and bars donated by ACE Hardware stores.
Two tools or items that were in short supply were water pumps and electric generators. Power lines were downed and the majority of existing basements and crawl spaces of damaged homes were flooded.
Shortly after our arrival, a yellow Ryder rental van pulled up and unloaded plastic wrapped pallets of generators and water pumps. They were donated to the lead teams identified by the American Red Cross as those most in need of the equipment at the time.
All of the generators and water pumps were yellow and black in color, but did not have any brand names or labels attached to identify where they were from. Some had dents in the gas tank or paint scratches but otherwise appeared new. All we knew at the time was that some company or business had donated them and they all were ready to work as soon as gas was poured into the tanks. The generators did have cut off labels on the recoil starter that identified them as ranging from 80 cc to 13-horse power. The smaller generators easily powered a circular saw and refrigeration equipment. The large 13 hp generators powered everything we could plug into them. The water pumps were either 2” or 3” models that included both suction and discharge hoses. Many of these pumps were only identified by a label on the recoil starter showing that they were 5 HP. On one of the generators I found a label giving a toll free number to call for technical support. I peeled the label off and stuck it to the inside of my wallet.
Several weeks after returning home I rediscovered the label with the toll free number and I became curious as to who the mystery donor was that provided the pumps and generators. I called the number and was connected to a Champion Power Equipment Technical Support person. He could only verify that the equipment I described sounded like what his company sold but had no further information he could share. I began to do some investigation by talking to the Red Cross coordinators and personnel at the distribution point. I learned that the generators were donated by Champion Power Equipment from Santa Fe Springs, CA. Wondering why there was no product name on the equipment to identify the company, I called Champion back and this time spoke to someone that had more helpful information. I learned that all of the donated generators and pumps were repaired or refurbished like-new products. The Champion name had been removed since it is Champion’s policy not to resell refurbished equipment with their brand name attached. Their refurbished equipment is often donated to disaster relief teams or sold to vendors in countries such as Mexico without the Champion name.
I was told that this generous company sent a large truck packed completely full of pieces of equipment for redistribution by the Red Cross Command Center. The generators were constantly reassigned to other response teams and used to provide emergency power and pump out services.
I do not know if other companies donated pumps and generators or not. I certainly hope they did. But I do know that the equipment we received was invaluable in relieving the suffering of thousands of people impacted by the storm damage.
I personally thank Champion Power Equipment for their generous contribution of emergency equipment.
