Couple continues mission to help despite fire, tornado, chemical plume

April and Chris Willars have dedicated their time over the past several years to helping those in need. But in January, they found themselves on the other side of hardship after a series of disasters hit their home.

Chris is an ex-convict who has spent his time since his release building a nonprofit to support incarcerated people, and his wife, April, took her penchant for teaching — she used to run a beauty school — and put it to work on her husband’s project. The two were days away from a house survey that, if passed, would have allowed them to start taking foster children.

But in the span of less than a year, a powerful tornado tore through their home, a BioLab plant fire and chemical plume forced them into lockdown and a recent devastating fire left much of their house in ruins.

Now, the people they have supported are stepping up to aid them.

“We help people, because we may need help one day,” Chris recently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution while grabbing photo albums and framed pictures that were still sticky and moist from soot and water but survived the Jan. 23 fire.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Despite their challenges, the couple continues running their nonprofit, The Life Unit Inc., from a cramped recreational vehicle they purchased with donated funds after the fire. Chris, who founded the organization while serving 17 years in prison for several robbery charges, also remotely assists people going through a California-based addiction treatment facility.

A life of patience

It would have been just days until April and Chris would have their home checked to start fostering children after recently taking classes through Bethany Christian Services. The fire that spread from the upstairs fireplace at the home crushed those plans — at least for the immediate future.

“That hurt me the most because we were trying to get the house ready for someone who doesn’t even have a home,” April said.

In their garage, twin-sized beds and other furniture had been stacked in preparation for setting up the foster bedrooms.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Since Chris came home from prison in 2020, April said she has suffered four miscarriages. Fostering and eventual adoption was their way to start a family and help those in need.

The couple met while Chris was still incarcerated in Virginia. He was sentenced in 2003 and spent 17 years in prison on robbery charges in two separate incidents when he was 19.

“I was a driver in a robbery. My cousin used a BB gun. Nobody got hurt, but I got hit with a lot of time and while I was in there, I fought forward,” Chris said.

He founded The Life Unit — a non-profit organization that offers re-entry and employment support, mental health resources and intervention services to incarcerated people — while still in prison and hosted workshops and seminars to inmates and those close to inmates. Through a friend, April became involved as a volunteer at events and the two started talking in 2017. His work at the time provided inmates with coping skills, emotional intelligence and effective communication skills.

A 2019 marriage followed. And when it was Chris' time for re-entry in 2020, he moved to Georgia to be with April. They recently renewed their vows in the front yard of their Conyers home.

‘It’s weird because we help people'

Together, they have focused on ways to help others. Whether that is through fostering or helping the incarcerated, the Willarses say they have always found ways to make a difference.

Chris said he battled with alcohol addiction after getting out of prison and now, three years sober, he works in recovery. In addition to being an outreach coordinator at Believe Treatment Center in Los Angeles, he said he also teaches recovery classes to about 60 people in Kenya. He had recently received a donation of six computers to send to Kenya for the classes, but they now sit in the garage, soggy from water damage.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Through The Life Unit, Chris said he and April have continued to help those leaving incarceration.

April is now heavily involved in The Life Unit, but previously ran a cosmetology school, Lasting Layers of Beauty Institute, where she sought to provide affordable training. She decided to close the Tucker school in December to focus on fostering and nonprofit work.

Now, finding themselves in a position of needing help, the Willarses say they feel humbled by the connections they’ve built over the years. The family has set up a GoFundMe, which has already helped them secure the down payment for an RV parked outside their home.

“It’s weird because we help people,” Chris said.

‘Did I do something wrong?’

During a cold spell on Jan. 23, Chris lit his brick wood-burning fireplace, brewed some coffee and sat by the fire around 8:15 a.m. Then he saw an ember shoot down. Black smoke began to come out several areas of the roof.

Panic set in. He checked the attic, saw smoke and tried to put out the orange glow with an extinguisher.

April quickly grabbed Helen, her 77-year-old mother-in-law, and their three dogs and jumped in the car. A layer of fluffy snow obstructed her windshield as she backed out of the driveway to get away from the house.

“(Chris) was coming back getting laptops to make sure we could work. Anytime he could come back and grab something he did until the fire trucks came,” April recounted.

When the fire was put out and the attic had been burned through, Chris was left with guilt.

“I was like, ‘Did I do something wrong? Did I let the fire go too high?’ And the fireman was like, ‘Dude, it wouldn’t have mattered if it did, it was supposed to be contained,” he explained.

According to a Rockdale fire department report, a contributing factor to the fire was “construction deficiency,” meaning a flaw in the home’s construction played a role in the fire. The upstairs ceiling is gone, leaving only charred beams behind. And the floors are littered with pink insulation, black soot and ash.

Audrey Moore — the real estate agent who sold them the house in July 2023 after putting their previous home on the market — said she knows no one blames her for the fire, but she couldn’t help but feel like she could’ve done something more when the Willarses were getting ready to close on the 1972 property.

“In my heart, I was wondering if we could have gotten a better inspector in because I can’t know all structure and the inner soul of a home,” Moore said.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Forced to temporarily live in an RV

About 10 feet from the front door to their charred home on April Drive sits the RV where Chris, April, Helen and their three dogs are now staying. It’s a tight fit, but it will be their home for the next few months as they work with insurance and contractors to rebuild.

Chris has been given a timeline of four to eight months before his family can move back in.

On Jan. 30, a week after the fire, Moore was among a few friends and family who helped the couple retrieve everything they didn’t immediately grab while escaping the blaze. Moore said she admires the couple’s positivity and strength as they calmly navigate the loss of their home.

Though much was lost in the fire — primarily items in the upstairs where the ceiling caved in — April managed to recover an intimate framed photo of her and Chris holding hands outside their home, coffee tables, clothing and other furniture.

A 16-foot storage container, paid for through donations, is parked on their driveway, housing laundry machines, a beige couch, shoes, lamps and various items that had been left outside the garage as the family first started salvaging their belongings.

Tragedy after tragedy

Superstition or not, bad things came in threes this past year for Chris and April.

On Sept. 29, Chris was on his way to Boston when April looked out their front door and saw a massive column of smoke. A fire at the BioLab plant, less than a mile from their home, produced a large chemical plume that prompted an evacuation of some areas and shelter-in-place warnings across Rockdale County for several weeks.

Explore‘Fear and anxiety’ loom over Georgia residents living in BioLab’s shadow

“She just sent me a picture from our front door, and it looked like a nuclear bomb went off, and there was no context, and I was freaking out,” Chris said of April’s initial text.

Credit: John Spink/AJC

Chris recalled his eyes burning whenever he stepped outside, describing the smell as similar to that of an indoor pool. One of his dogs has since gotten skin rashes and “she’s never had that type of stuff,” he said.

Just a few months prior, on April 2, Conyers was hit by an EF-2 tornado. A home just a few streets away from the couple’s was damaged when a tree fell on the roof. The remnant of the tornado can still be seen in the Willarses’ backyard, where trees just beyond their fence line remain toppled.

ExploreDisaster area declared for six Georgia counties hit by storm, tornado

That night, Chris woke up around 11 p.m. after dozing off and described looking at a solid wall of white. He could barely see more than 10 feet out of the window in his bedroom.

“I’ve never been in a tornado, but I could tell we were in something abnormal,” Chris said.

The noise was like a freight train buzzing through their yard. Chris said the storm just became louder and louder, until everything suddenly went silent. And then water started gushing through the garage door. They’re still not sure where all the water came from, but Chris said it came down the road, onto their driveway and into their garage.

Fencing was knocked over, a part of the roof was torn up and their deck crumpled. The couple used to have a greenhouse and an empty chicken coop in their backyard, but those are gone now. They have since been able to rebuild their deck.

As they continue receiving donations and help from those they’ve supported over the years, the Willarses are still running The Life Unit and managing their recovery efforts from their RV. They hope that being parked right outside their home will encourage their insurance company and builders to get them back inside quickly.

“In some weird way, I know we’ll be all right,” Chris said, reminding himself of advice he often dispenses to the incarcerated people he works with through his charity. “We need to keep going forward.”

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