Help young family, lost everything
Donation protected
My name is Gena. My fiancé, Brett, and 7-year-old daughter, Aviana, lost everything after our apartment building caught fire Sunday morning.
Our main priority is, and has been for the last seven years, to provide for my daughter. To build a good life for my family. It’s been a constant struggle, but we’ve always figured out a way to make it through.
I woke to the alarms, saw the smoke, woke Brett, grabbed my daughter from her room and ran. We didn’t think to grab anything, anything at all. I’m wearing pants that a generous woman gave me on the street as we watched the crews try to put out the fire. Thank God for her. All Brett has are the clothes on his back.
We didn’t grab anything - including my engagement ring and the last things my father gave me. I lost him around the same age my daughter is now. I was 8 years old when he died. All of it is gone.
Thankfully a firefighter found my engagement ring in the debris hours later. But other than that - we’re all we have left.
Avi, Brett, and I are safe, but it’s just so hard to understand... why do things like this happen to people just trying to get by?
We need to figure out how to start again. We need to figure out how to get Avi to school on Monday.
If there is anything you can spare this holiday season, it would mean more than we could ever say.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/dozens-displaced-after-fire-at-bensenville-apartment-building-458630423.html
https://youtu.be/a09L1kyKtFM
Our main priority is, and has been for the last seven years, to provide for my daughter. To build a good life for my family. It’s been a constant struggle, but we’ve always figured out a way to make it through.
I woke to the alarms, saw the smoke, woke Brett, grabbed my daughter from her room and ran. We didn’t think to grab anything, anything at all. I’m wearing pants that a generous woman gave me on the street as we watched the crews try to put out the fire. Thank God for her. All Brett has are the clothes on his back.
We didn’t grab anything - including my engagement ring and the last things my father gave me. I lost him around the same age my daughter is now. I was 8 years old when he died. All of it is gone.
Thankfully a firefighter found my engagement ring in the debris hours later. But other than that - we’re all we have left.
Avi, Brett, and I are safe, but it’s just so hard to understand... why do things like this happen to people just trying to get by?
We need to figure out how to start again. We need to figure out how to get Avi to school on Monday.
If there is anything you can spare this holiday season, it would mean more than we could ever say.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/dozens-displaced-after-fire-at-bensenville-apartment-building-458630423.html
https://youtu.be/a09L1kyKtFM
Organizer
Gena Marie
Organizer
Bensenville, IL