A community is rallying in support of a Catholic family in Abbotsford after beloved pets, Christmas gifts, and most of their belongings were lost in a house fire.
“It’s astounding. There are people helping me I don’t even know,” said Kate Taschereau, a single mom and a secretary at Westminster Abbey in Mission.
Taschereau and her children were out sledding after Mass on Sunday, Dec. 11, when a neighbour phoned to tell her their rental home was ablaze.
“When we got there, the bottom floor was engulfed in flames.”
Christmas gifts, clothing, school supplies, and musical instruments were destroyed. The family’s cat managed to escape the burning home, but a dog, bunny, and hamster died of smoke inhalation.
“Unfortunately, not only were my children going to have to adjust to the fact that their things were gone, but also that their pets had died.”
The single mom lived in a home on Abbotsford’s Osprey Drive with four of her five children, aged 10 to 18. Her eldest daughter, age 20, had moved out to attend a post-secondary school.
The family had also been hosting two international students at the time of the fire. When the blazed destroyed their home, seven people were displaced.
Taschereau said it took one phone call to long-time family friend Jody Garneau of St. Ann’s Parish before help began pouring in from all directions.
“You work hard, you keep your head down, you feel like you’re doing it alone. Then something like this happens and you realize you’re not alone,” she said.
Taschereau received phone calls from St. James Parish, the schools her children attend, and even from a martial arts school in Cloverdale that her children have not visited for years. Each group was looking for ways to help.
Some donated funds. Others brought furniture or clothing. The principal of St. John Brebeuf Regional Secondary began looking into rental properties for the family to move to. Another friend rented storage space to keep donated items in the meantime.
Garneau set up a fundraiser on crowd funding site Wonder We Dec. 13. In two days, it had raised nearly $8,000.
“They were renting and she had no insurance on her stuff,” Garneau said.
Despite losing everything weeks before Christmas, “they are coping surprisingly well.”
Taschereau said not long before the fire, she had taken her 12-year-old son to feed the homeless in Surrey with NightShift Street Ministries. Losing their home gave them a new perspective on that experience.
“We were helping homeless people last week, and right now we’re basically homeless,” she told him.
“Why do we have a place to stay? Because people love us and we have lots of friends. Poverty appears to be the lack of things, but it’s really the lack of people in your life to support you.”
