Help Tarzan and Ms. Margaret Get Their Home Back

Many of you may know my great uncle Jake, a.k.a. Tarzan, and my grandmother Ms. Margaret in the Peoplestown/Summerhill communities. On September 25, 2022, at 4:00 AM, after being woken up by smoke and my great uncle continuously coughing, my grandmother Margaret struggled to get herself and my great uncle from a burning home that was set on fire—which we later learned was intentional. The fire investigator determined that the laundry room was set on fire using pine straw. It seems that the goal was to attempt to kill them and steal a safe containing money and my grandmother’s documents, such as her deed, birth certificates, death certificates, and other personal artifacts irreplaceable to her and the rest of the family.

From this house fire, the entire laundry room and its contents (washer, dryer, hot water tank, clothes, laundry essentials, lawn care items and other items that we could not recover as they were completely destroyed and unrecognizable) are gone. The laundry room was adjacent to the kitchen and hot water tank, with a gas connection. Worse yet, as mentioned before, my grandmother’s safe with her savings and personal items was stolen. We could identify that the safe was stolen because the culprit threw the safe from the bathroom window, which cracked, and they took its contents as we recovered scraps of the safe in the backyard below the bathroom window.

Despite all this and without even using a cane, my grandmother got herself and my great uncle out of the burning home. We thank God that she was able to do this every day.

My grandmother, a 26-year breast cancer survivor, was released from the hospital last week due to complications from her prescription medication affecting her kidney and vitamin levels and fluid accumulation in her breast from dehydration. In addition to these complications, my grandmother has been suffering from Long Covid, among other co-morbidities that the smoke inhalation from the fire has worsened. She is on a fixed monthly income, and her savings were stolen. As a result, it is difficult for her to afford renovations of her laundry room along with the other financial requirements for getting copies of vital records that were also contained in the safe. My great uncle Eugene is mentally disabled, partially blind and is cared for by my mother and my grandmother because he cannot care for himself.

As longtime, valued members and pillars of the community, my grandmother and great-uncle deserve to be reunited back in their home free of smoke and with the necessary financial stability to work towards remodeling their laundry room and getting their documents back.

We are asking that you help in any way that you can. Donations, sharing this GoFundMe and interacting all go a long way in our efforts.

We have attached pictures and videos of the damage. Thank you for any help you can provide to our family this time!