Ten dollars and enough gas to drive 80 km.
That’s all engaged couple Morris Gilliah and Megan Wallace found themselves with on Wednesday while stranded in Winnipeg. The duo was living in New Brunswick, but after struggling to find work in the province they were offered employment with a family member’s company in British Columbia.
They packed up and were looking forward to a new start and work about 5000 kilometres away, but the journey was anything but forgiving.
“It was all fine until we hit the Quebec highway in the middle of the night when we blew our first tire,” explains Wallace. “The belt completely shredded so we changed the tire on the side of the highway in the middle of the night. It was quite challenging, pretty scary.”
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After that, two more tires blew out when travelling through Ontario, adding significant unexpected expenses to the trip.
“We’re defeated, just don’t know what to do,” says Gilliah. “You get to that point that you can only be rejected so many times before you’re thinking you’re done, we’re stranded, we’re here.”
The couple are sleeping in the back of their car in a parking lot at the apartment building of a United Way volunteer who only wanted to be identified as Larry. He says while this doesn’t usually fall into the organization’s levels of support, they’ve stepped up considering the uniqueness and severity of the situation.
“Heartbreaking and sad. Good people having a hard time trying to get to British Columbia to go work. For them to experience that, it breaks my heart, but being sad is just a moment of it then you got to act on it and help in anyway you can.” explained the volunteer.
The couple still isn’t giving up hope, saying they’re more than willing to access food banks along the way, but that they just need to find gas money. Gilliah says this ordeal has been discouraging considering they are just trying to get employment, but he’s still looking forward to the moment he arrives in British Columbia with his fiancée, and gets to see some family.
“I’m going to hug my sister so tight you won’t even believe it,” says Gilliah. “I don’t mind working at all, I’d do just about anything right now for work, because in Saint John’s, there’s nothing. Unfortunately the gas prices went up again, go figure.”
Gilliah and Wallace have opened up a GoFundMe page, hoping to receive enough gas money to get out west.
