*Affirm Originals movie presents “5000 BLANKETS” now available to stream exclusively on Pure Flix. The film is inspired by the remarkable true story of Cyndi Bunch and her young son, Phillip, whose lives are changed forever after her husband disappears during a mental health crisis. Phillip’s generosity and determination spark an entire city’s movement to help the homeless. Anna Camp (“Jerry and Marge Go Large,” “Pitch Perfect”) plays Cyndi Bunch in the film.
“I’m so honored to be part of such a moving story,” said Camp. “This is a story about a woman of faith who believes in God, but who’s really struggling with why this painful thing happened to her. She has doubts and fears but ultimately, it’s a movie about overcoming them in the face of personal struggle. It’s also about loving others and making a difference on a daily basis.”
The film, directed by Amin Matalqa and produced by Doug Shaffer also stars Carson Minniear (“Rally Caps”), Rob Mayes (“Thor: Ragnarok”), Rod Hallett (“The Last Kingdom,” “Red Rose, MacGyver”), and Kim Myers (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 2”).
“I was really moved when I first read the screenplay based on Cyndi and Phillip’s story,” said Matalqa. “I love capturing stories of dreamers and unsung heroes on film. I know audiences will find the story as inspiring as I did.”
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The new film is inspired by the remarkable true story of the Bunch family. When her husband went missing during a mental health crisis, Cyndi and her son Phillip discovered an unmet need in their city of Fort Worth, Texas: thousands of homeless were going to be left cold as the temperatures plummet in the coming winter months. Together, the mother and son founded the charity Phillip’s Wish and began collecting blankets to provide to those in need.
“One night as I was tucking Phillip into bed, he asked me, ‘Mommy, are you cold?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m fine.’ He goes, ‘Do you think daddy’s cold?’” said Cyndi about the inspiration behind the charity. “I was just taken aback. I didn’t know how to even answer that… He just kept saying, ‘We need to get these blankets so we can warm them all up.’”
EURweb spoke to Cyndi Bunch about the film and how others should help the forgotten in our society.
EURweb: The film is a tear-jerker and there are a lot of aspects that the audience can relate to but one of the most profound elements of the film is how you use your pain to help others. Can you speak a little bit more about that concept?
Cyndi Bunch: Actually I can. When everything first started happening and we started losing everything, Phillip and I moved in with my mother, I remember I was driving, I was trying to find someplace to just pray. But I didn’t want to go to church to do it. So I found this little chapel outside of the church and I went into that chapel and a lady came in, and I’ll never forget, as long as I live, her name was Betsy Godbold, believe it or not, and she was a preacher. So she sat and listened to me while in my depression, for about two hours and she said, I want you to stay right here, don’t move. She went into the church, and she brought me a book called “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren and I read that book. I can’t tell you how many times there was a certain passage in the book that says ‘you get your greatest passion from your greatest pain’ and that’s how [the charity] was born.
EURweb: What do you want the audience to take away from this film concerning homelessness and the intersection of mental illness?
Bunch: It’s all the same, 80% of people living on the streets suffer from some kind of mental disorder, may it be schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depression, or PTSD. The other 10% are families that just don’t have a place to go because of the economy [or] are individuals that are doing drugs and alcohol, well, that is also a disease. What I want, personally, well it’s really what God wants [for] people to take away from the film is that people are people and they are to be treated as such. People stereotype people, especially the homeless population, they’re not good or bad and that is so not true. They are some of the kindest, nicest, most intelligent people you will ever meet. They just suffer from a mental illness, and there are not enough resources out there to help these people. That’s why the system has failed. That’s why it’s going to take us as a community to work together, not just the government, you can’t count on the government for everything. You’ve got to count on each other and it speaks about that in the Bible, that we come together as a unit as a whole. I think that if we do that, then we can accomplish huge things. But it’s going to take all of us working together. So basically, I want people to watch this film on Pure Flix. Put themselves, and a lot of people are in those shoes, in other people’s shoes, get out there and make a difference instead of waiting for government agencies and churches because it’s not going to work that way. It’s going to take us as a whole.
EURweb: I don’t know if you’ve seen a video circulating about this guy hosing down a homeless woman and a lot of people are outraged.
Bunch: It’s about time that people get outraged, people need to be upset because these people are human beings, and they need to be treated as such. I mean, they wouldn’t hose me down, they wouldn’t hose you down, I mean, I don’t get it that’s what I’m saying the system has failed. We don’t have any place for these people to go, the shelters are overrun. People are living in campsites. Where can they take a shower? They can’t, unless they go into a store and go into the bathroom, it’s sad. We need a better way of getting people into transitional housing. I mean, you look around and all these buildings are empty, what are we doing? We can help these people, and it’s like, it makes you want to get up there and kind of protest in a way. It’s like, open this building up and so many people want to help, but they just don’t know how and they feel defeated because one person cannot do everything, it takes several people, it takes millions of people to come together as a whole. We’re all created by God and we also should be loved and treated as such.
EURweb: What can someone do? What are some few steps that people can start doing within their community to acquire these buildings or get some of the homeless into transitional homes? What would you advise?
Bunch: We come together, go to our city council meetings, we get our mayor’s offices and we push for this. We don’t just do it two or three people at a time, we do it at 100, 200, or 300 people at a time. The more people that jump on board, the more impact that we’re going to make, they’re going to listen, because they’re going to have to listen.
EURweb: Can you speak to the power of one person having the initiative to make a difference in their community? Before anything can happen that one person needs to stand up.
Bunch: If I hadn’t stood up for my child and my husband, we wouldn’t have this 20-year nonprofit that we’re running right now. I can tell you that lives have been changed. I’ve seen it. I’ve walked it. I know it. So anybody can take one blanket and make a difference, take ten blankets and make a difference. It’s not always blanketed. It could be food, some so many hungry children go to school hungry, look at the prices in the grocery stores now. Everybody can make a difference, everybody, and there’s no excuse for us not to, there’s no excuse for us to hide in a little bubble in our own houses and not care about our neighbors.
That’s not what the Bible talks about. The Bible says “we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.” The big takeaway from this movie is that it’s going to move people to action. I think it should be shown in every school so the children go home and teach their parents about compassion, and teach their parents how to start something. Churches tend to stay in a little bubble as well. They don’t go outside the church. You need to go outside the church. The church needs to come together not, ‘oh, well, we’re Baptists or we’re Presbyterian, or we’re Jewish.’ Everybody needs to come together because we are all loved by the same God. We’re all his chosen people. If we come together instead of going to this side of the fence and this side of the fence and that side of the fence. It’s just crazy. Everybody can make a difference, everybody can make an impact.
EURweb: Are you planning to expand your nonprofit nationally?
Bunch: I would love to do that and that’s why this movie is so important. I’m getting calls now from people that are asking me, ‘How can I do this in my city? Can we use your name?’ of course you can. I mean, it’s up to you, you can start your own, it’s not that hard to start a 501C3, you have to be extremely passionate about it. We don’t have any salaried employees whatsoever. I looked at all these big nonprofits and the salaries these people are getting are more than the money they’re raising. What is going on? It doesn’t make sense. My web girl doesn’t get a salary to do my website. I don’t get a salary. My son doesn’t get a salary. You’ve got to have enough passion in your heart because once you start putting dollar figures on your heart, you have a problem, that’s where the problem starts.
EURweb: What is the biggest lesson you learned from this experience in your life?
Bunch: Faith is what’s going to carry you. Hope is huge. You always have to carry hope in your heart because it’s there and God’s going to get you through all your trials and tribulations if you choose to let Him instead of wallowing in your depression, which I could have. I could have wallowed in my depression, but it took a preacher and a child to wake me up. I haven’t stopped it’s 20 years and we’re still going and we’re still making it by the grace of God. We’re still making it because we live strictly off of donations. That’s how we make it and how we buy our goods [and] people dropping off things? Everybody knows where my house is, it’s crazy, they’ll knock on my door dropping off diapers. I run a food pantry out of my garage, why would I spend $600 on a storage unit just so that food can sit there? Does that make sense? People spend so much money on these big galas to raise all this money. Well, most of the money has gone to the gala.
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