SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - When wildfires decimate homes, one of the hardest things to cope with is lost memories.
"Every time there's a wildfire in the area, I think, what do we do? What do we put in the car first? One of my top three things is my photos," said Jill Derry, a San Diego mother.
Throughout her two daughter's childhoods, Derry was right there with a video camera in hand.
"My thought was I just need to capture this. Growing up, we didn't have a movie camera. There's few pictures. I would've loved to have seen what I was like as a child," said Derry.
Years of their memories were stored on 20 VHS and cassette tapes.
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"It would break my heart if I couldn't recover them," said Derry.
So she bought a Legacybox; the company helps customers digitize tapes, film, photos, and audio recordings. When you send your box to get digitized, each item receives a GPS barcode so you can track it throughout the process.
"This comforted me, this gave me a sense of ah, my movies are safe." said Derry.
Customers can receive their digitized memories on DVDs, thumb drives, or on the cloud.
Derry is giving the gift to her daughters this holiday.
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"I'm a really sentimental person, every time I come home I want to watch old movies and watch videos of us as babies and kids, it's important I have these memories for a lifetime," said Jill's daughter Sarah.
As part of their natural disaster preparedness efforts, Legacybox is giving 200 free kits to Southern Californians in wildfire-prone areas.
"When disaster strikes, losing irreplaceable, cherished possessions and memories should be the last thing on family's minds as they prepare for the uncertainty of natural disasters. Memories matter but are often trapped in our attics or storage closets and at risk of being lost forever. We want families to rest assure that those memories are insured by us and available on digital formats that are safe against natural disaster threats and for future generations," said founder, Adam Boeselager.
The kits will be donated on a first-come, first-served basis.
