Thanks to the kindness of strangers, a family of five is rebuilding after fire forced them out of their rental home on 125th Avenue and 224th Street.
A fire in the kitchen on Nov. 17 destroyed that room and rendered the rest of the house uninhabitable because of smoke damage.
Brianna and Greg Needoby and their three small kids lost all their furniture, clothes and possessions and were living in a hotel.
A friend had offered to put up the family in a one-bedroom basement suite, but then a stranger stepped forward.
He was about to put his Albion area home on the rental market and instead offered it to them at a reasonable rent for a year.
“We were blown away by his generosity. It’s a very nice house,” Brianna said last week.
The help started pouring in soon after the fire. People were dropping off clothes and toys. “Everyone wants to donate kids clothes, which is amazing,” she said.
“There’s still stuff that we need, but for the most part, we are getting settled and we can resume day-to-day life with what we have at the moment.”
The family is actually getting too many donations of clothes and is having to take some to thrift stores.
To help out her seven-year-old son, who has autism, someone bought him the same type of bed he had to make the readjustment easier.
Thanks to Facebook, people showed up to help remove the contents from the burnt house, which will be gutted in December. The family has until Dec. 5 to remove all possessions.
“We don’t even know most of them. Everywhere we go, people seem to know who we are,” Brianna said. “The outpouring of generosity has been amazing.”
The family’s also received gift cards and grocery cards, which help a lot.
The family is still fighting with its insurance company for a settlement, but it’s doubtful they’ll be covered.
A gofundme page, Greg and Brianna House Fire Fund, has been set up for the family.