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The New Beginning Fund

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My name is Michelle Brown and I am a wife and mother of two teenagers. This is the story of how my family lost everything, except our lives to an arsonist.  
On October 22nd in the middle of the night an individual crept around our yard and decided that we had everything that he wanted,  a nice home, an accumulation of "stuff" and family and friends.  He wanted to take it all and he did.  He lit it up with gasoline / oil and stayed around to make sure it remained lit.  The fire quickly spread from a small semi-attached garage to the back of the house where the stairs were for the basement.  We had 5 teenage boys at the house staying overnight in the basement.  They were all planning on going on a college tour together the next day.  Some time past 2:30 a.m. my husband, who slept with a breathing machine, woke up to a popping noise.  Thinking it was the boys goofing around in the basement he proceeded to head for the basement only to realize it was the garage and the house that was on fire.  He woke me up and called 911.  I ran towards the fire into the basement and woke up the boys.  4 of the boys ran ahead of me up the stairs and I followed until I realized I was missing one.  I headed back to the basement as he came tripping up the steps.  He hesitated at the top and was burnt by the fire that was now exploding through our back porch windows.  Luckily, the burn he received was minor and he's healing nicely.  
We all made it out that night with our lives, but that's all.  In our haste we were not able to grab a single thing out of the house.  In the minutes and hours that followed we watched as our house, our memories, our garage, my husband's business and two of our cars burned to the ground.  The firemen told us we were lucky to get out and that we only had up to 3 minutes to escape.
I am grateful for all of us escaping with our lives, but am devastated by the loss of everything that took us over 20 years to build.  We lost "stuff",but we also lost so many memories and the feeling of comfort and safety of our home.
Since the fire we've been going back and forth with the insurance company on what was and what wasn't covered in our policy.  We've learned the hard way that we were underinsured in every aspect of our lives.  My husband's hot rod that took him 10 years to build sits in ashes and wasn't covered.  It was days away from being put into storage.  Because of the loss of income from his shop he won't ever be able to rebuild.  
Normally, we were not the kind of people who would ask for help or hand outs, but since this happened we've had to humbly accept any help that has been offered.
To make things even worse, on November 10th my husband who was literally heart broken over the extreme loss suffered a heart attack and needed to have a stint put in to open up a main artery that was 90% blocked.  He is still in the hospital as I write this story.  
I am thankful to all of the friends and family that have helped us set up a temporary place and have been praying for us, but I know we have a long road ahead and the money that is donated to our family will be used to help us literally rebuild our lives from scratch.  Our two teenagers are college bound and now we have to live on the money that would have assisted them.  
The arsonist who tried to take everything from us did succeed, but he could not and did not take away our spirit to fight as a family to come back from this nightmare that is now our reality.  We would all be sincerely and forever grateful for any donation that you could spare to help us rebuild a new life from the ashes.
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Donations 

  • Aaron Beyersdorff
    • $20 
    • 8 yrs
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Organizer

Benjamin Brown
Organizer
Merrill, WI

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