An apartment building in flames with stunned residents looking on as their homes are lost — this has been a sight repeated in our city this year.
A January fire in the 12-unit Woodlands Apartment building off Heatherdowns Boulevard in South Toledo killed three adults and a child and left many others without a home. In April, a fire at Parkside Apartments displaced 17 families. In May, three dozen units in the Andover Apartments complex along Eastgate Road also were destroyed in a fire.
Residents from these buildings, previously consumed by flames, continue to rebuild their lives. The Northwest Ohio chapter of the American Red Cross has helped 288 local families needing disaster relief since Jan. 1 — 36 families from the Woodlands fire, including 17 from the Parkside fire, 53 from the Andover fire, and now 16 from the Wachter Building fire last week. Many of these people need help for several months.
Among his many contributions to American decency and neighborliness, the children’s TV host Fred Rogers once said: “When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ ”
After Tuesday’s devastating fire that destroyed the 120-year-old Wachter Building in UpTown Toledo, the helpers — from firefighters and other first responders, to local businesses, to regular citizens just wanting to lend a hand — were on the scene to support their neighbors.
Before the fire was extinguished, local businesses from the Adams Street corridor sprung into action, putting out the call for donations to help residents who had lost all their possessions. The community responded with contributions of clothing and personal items. Neighborhood restaurants offered free meals, through the night, to both the dispossessed and the firefighters.
Fire Chief Luis Santiago said: “We have such a generous, big hearted community.”
We do. This is what it means to be a “compassionate community” — to practice active compassion. We must be helpers, not talkers.
To support the victims of Tuesday’s fire, donate to the Wachter Residents Relief Fund created by the Village on Adams: gofundme.com/villageonadams. To donate to the Red Cross, visit redcross.org.
First Published June 18, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
