Montville Teacher Who Lost Home RV To Fire Is Back On The Road

MONTVILLE, NJ — After a fire destroyed his home RV in February, friends and family of former Montville teacher Jack Lynch raised over $57 thousand to help him get back on his feet. Now he's on the road again with a new RV.

"Jack is up and going," Kurt Kilanowski, a former student who organized the GoFundMe campaign, told Patch.

Lynch left Sarasota, Florida, where he retired to and is heading up the East coast, making a few stops along the way to visit family and friends.

He will be hitting Randolph, where he was from, and Montville, where he taught English, sometime in the next month or so, Kilanowski said. And in the Summer, he's planing on journeying across the country to visit his daughter in Seattle.

"None of this would be possible without your kindness, compassion, and loving generosity," Lynch wrote in a letter update posted to the GoFundMe page. "I am truly humbled by your touching comments about how I was able to contribute to your lives in some small way. Now I can honestly say that you all have laid the foundation of lighting my way out of the darkness created by a Wall of Fire."

In line with a family tradition, Lynch named his new RV, a 2021 Fleetwood Fortis 32RW. He called it The Gift.

"He said every time he opens the door gets in he says 'thank you' for the gift," Kilanowski explained.

The last RV was called The Rig, because of how big it was. It burned down because of a refrigerator fire.

This time around Lynch went for an RV a bit smaller, as he is a decade older now. The money raised has helped him put in a "substantial" downpayment, therefore decreasing his mortgage.

Although no money can replace some of the sentimental and irreplaceable items lost in the fire, Lynch is counting his blessings.

"His philosophy from all of this was that his suffering brought a lot of people together," Kilanowski said. "He’s an amazing man, he really is."