By admin 
Years ago, the roof began to leak, dripping down the bricked-up chimney in Sandra Johnson’s childhood home.
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She couldn’t afford to move, Johnson said in June 2026, but more than that, she couldn’t part with the downtown Columbia neighborhood she grew up in.
“But when you pray for things, they happen,” Johnson said, describing the stress her roof has caused her since it started leaking in 2023. “And I prayed every day, please don’t fall in, please don’t fall in.”
When she got home from work Tuesday night, “three angels” were waiting for her.
Buddy Ram, Cole Simpson and Matt Marcom posed as a landscaping business and said they were willing to do Johnson’s yard work for free — not telling her they’d also be replacing her roof.
The three friends have done this before, making a career out of giving away roofs by posting YouTube videos. And Johnson was not picked by accident like she thought. She was recommended to the YouTubers by a Columbia nonprofit organization, one of the many ways that the group finds recipients.
Simpson and Ram’s business started in Columbia but expanded outside of South Carolina as their channel, Soda City Simpson, began to receive millions of views.
They are now back in Columbia, finishing their most recent project — Johnson’s childhood home.
More than a roof
“I’m just an average person,” Johnson said as she looked past the chain-link fence into the overgrown yard. “I don’t make much money.”
Simpson told her shortly after that a crew would be arriving soon to redo her roof, something that would have costed Johnson between $9,000 and $12,000 dollars, according to Instant Roofer and other cost calculators.
“We haven’t been completely honest with you,” Simpson said as they finished doing yard work in Johnson’s yard Wednesday morning.
Johnson sent Simpson a questioning look. When they explained, she fell to tears.
Johnson’s mother, Alma D. Sharp, loved the house. Sharp grew bright pink flowers and put ceramic statues in the front. She loved to garden, Johnson said.
Sharp died in 1999. But through tears, Johnson said, “I know she’s smiling now.”
Sharp worked as nurse in Columbia for 44 years, spending most of her time at Richland Memorial Hospital. The house, right by C.A. Johnson High School where Johnson graduated, is where her family felt the “most familiar.”
Johnson stood on the street outside of her house for hours watching the men work. A few neighbors stopped by to ask what was happening.
Johnson often responded with a short dance and a simple: “I’m getting a free roof!”
“We all grew up together — that house, that house, that house, that house and that house on the corner,” Johnson told The State. “That’s five of us.”
She had considered moving a year ago, but she didn’t want to leave.
“One thing I wasn’t prepared for — the meaning of a roof is a bigger deal than I initially thought,” Ram said about his experience so far. “A lot of people want to keep their homes because it’s a family home.”
“They’re protecting an aspect of their lives,” Ram said.
“Self-sustaining giving machine”
“Are you excited?” Ram asked after he climbed down from Johnson’s roof.
Johnson smiled widely, standing just outside of her yard. “Can you tell?” she asked.
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After meeting in college at the University of South Carolina, Ram and Simpson started their own roofing company in 2023. But it was missing something, they said.
“I was miserable,” Simpson said.
The hours were long, and the work was not as rewarding as the group hoped. In September 2025, they changed the company’s mission.
“I have believed in social media a long time,” Simpson said. “And I wondered if we could combine them.”
By posting YouTube videos surprising people with free landscaping and roof work, they discovered they could make enough money to keep the cycle going.
“We wanted the roofing company to give back. We both love Columbia,” Ram said. “It’s sort of like a self-sustaining giving machine.”
Johnson’s roof was the 26th free roof that Simpson and Ram worked on in Columbia. They have done 40 total and 30 since they started posting videos.
Along with the roof, they also do work on the houses such as landscaping or fixing broken doors. For Johnson, they planted the bright pink flowers her mother grew before she died.
It is not a nonprofit organization, they said. But they don’t make a profit. Their YouTube channel brings in enough money to cover Ram’s wage and the cost of equipment. Simpson works another job.
Sometimes, Ram is able to set up partnerships with other roofing companies that help pay for crews and equipment in exchange for sponsorship in the YouTube video they release.
“We also have great relationships with nonprofits in the area,” Ram said, which is how they normally find people in need of a new roof. That or going door-to-door, he said.
With enough views, Ram said, they’d be able to keep giving away roofs for as long as possible.
50 roofs. 50 states.
The group is always brainstorming new ideas, Simpson said.
Their next ambition is bigger than Columbia: “50 roofs in 50 states.” Over the next two years, they plan to give away a roof in every state.
“Typically we like to include an element of surprise,” Ram said. “Sometimes we’ll throw in twists.”
Simpson, Ram and Marcom have family and ties in Columbia. But more than that, they said, the city is where their business first began and where their home is.
From the very first giveaway, before the cameras were even on, the point wasn’t a single gesture. It was to build something that could keep doing for the rest of their careers: “make a machine that keeps giving away free roofs,” Ram said.
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