Home Town star Erin Napier shared a GoFundMe page established to help Jeffrey Stewart, an electrician who works on the show. Stewart was not injured while making the show. He recently suffered a “terrible fall” from a ladder and faces a long recovery during which he will not be able to work as his medical expenses stack up.
“This is Mr. Jeffrey, one of our dear friends and an electrician on Home Town,” Napier wrote in her Instagram Story, alongside a link to the GoFundMe page. “He was badly injured in a work accident this week (not on Home Town), and he needs our help!” When Napier shared the link, only $1,200 of the $10,000 goal had been raised. Since then, the fund is up to $4,590.
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Stewart suffered “severe injuries,” according to Carrie Aguirre, who set up the page for his family earlier this week. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital for surgery. He is “doing good now” but is unable to work while he recovers. “I’m am asking for any help you can provide this family,” Aguirre wrote. “If you know the Stewart’s, you know how kind, generous, and loving they are. Let’s show them an outpouring of support during this troublesome time.”
Napier and her husband, Ben Napier, host HGTV‘s Home Town, which follows the couple as they renovate homes in Laurel, Mississippi. The show’s fifth season premiered on HGTV on Jan. 3. A spin-off, Home Town: Ben’s Workshop, is now available on the new discovery+ streaming platform that launched on Jan. 4. The new series focuses on Ben’s woodworking.
In a recent interview with PopCulture.com, the Napiers reflected on the challenges of filming during the coronavirus pandemic. Napier said it was “very, very difficult” to get the appliances they needed. “So beg, borrow, and steal to have a refrigerator in every kitchen,” she explained. “We don’t know why this is happening with appliances, specifically because everything is messed up.” Ben said the two ended up borrowing refrigerators just for the renovation reveal, then had to explain to the homeowner that their real refrigerator is coming at a later date.
The stars’ relationship with their crew has also been hurt thanks to social distancing guidelines. They also could not add a special guest to a show at the last moment because the guest would have to be tested. “With Home Town, and I don’t know that it’s like this on every show, but we’ve been together for several seasons,” Ben explained. “For a lot of them, it’s been five years. And the best part of our job is crew lunch. We get together, everybody has lunch, and it’s catered. And we talk about the day we laugh, we tell stories, and we don’t get that. Everybody sits in their car alone and eats lunch.”
