‘What a blessing.’ Ky. teacher donates car to woman who lost hers in Mayfield tornado

A day or so after a tornado struck Mayfield, Anderson County teacher Sharon Sutherland woke up at 3 a.m. with a resolve to donate a car she owned to someone who lost theirs in the storm.

“I woke up in the middle of the night with it on my mind,” Sutherland told the Herald-Leader in an email Wednesday. “The next day my husband and I talked about it. Then it grew from there.”

Sutherland contacted Anderson County Sheriff Joe Milam for ideas on how to find someone. He connected her with Graves County Sheriff Jon Hayden.

Hayden said in a social media post that Sutherland drove four hours to Mayfield on Dec. 26 to meet Rebecca Marsala, who had lost her car at the candle factory where she was working Dec. 10 when the tornado hit.

“Rebecca was trapped for 5 hours before being rescued. She spent several days in the hospital recovering from her injuries,” Hayden said.

Sutherland signed over the title and handed the keys to Marsala.

“What a blessing,” Hayden said in his post.

School employees all over the state have been donating to the West Kentucky tornado victims.

“Some of the lessons we do best in class, aren’t the science, or the English or the math, it’s the life things,” Sutherland told the Herald-Leader’s reporting partner WKYT.

This story was originally published December 29, 2021 at 8:30 AM.