It’s always amazing how a community can instantly rally to help one of its own when tragedy strikes.
Krista Rushlow, a third-grade teacher at Oxford Elementary, has experienced this firsthand over the last week or so following the house fire her family suffered March 20.
Staff, students and parents at Oxford, Daniel Axford, Clear Lake and Lakeville elementaries have rallied together and donated at least $6,121 (and counting), plus numerous contributions of clothes, toys and gift cards, to the family.
‘You talk about a community coming together, that’s what it was. It was overwhelming,? said OES secretary Donna Weis.
OES students raised $2,020 and that’s not including the estimated $1,000 donated by the staff. Daniel Axford collected about $1,300, Clear Lake $1,068 and Lakeville amassed $733.
Lakeville still has a fund-raiser planned for April 1.
‘The amount of support has just been amazing. I don’t even know how else to describe it,? said Rushlow, who’s been teaching at OES since August 2002. ‘We are just so blessed to have such amazing friends and the community in Oxford. We’re so blessed and thankful to be a part of it.?
‘Words can’t express how much we appreciate all of the donations,? she continued. ‘Especially the toys, the smiles they’ve brought to our kids? faces, they light up our hearts. We are just so, so thankful.?
Fortunately, Rushlow, her husband Kirt and their children Kade, a kindergartner at Daniel Axford, and twin 4-year-old girls Paige and Bella, were not inside their Rochester Hills home when the fire started.
They did, however, discover it when they returned home.
‘You could hear the smoke detectors going off,? Rushlow said. ‘I opened the back door to the house and (the fire) was right there on our basement stairs.?
They immediately called the Rochester Hills Fire Department. ‘The fire department worked so hard and was able to save the structure, so we’re really thankful for that and that we found it early enough,? she said. ‘The structure of the house is okay, but they’re going to have to gut it and start over.?
Contents were a different story. Other than some photographs she was able to salvage, everything else inside the house was destroyed by smoke and water damage.
‘All of our belongings were lost,? Rushlow said. ‘The smoke and water damage was enough that pretty much everything’s done.?
The Rushlow family has been living in a hotel, but they just signed a lease for a place to live during the six months it’s going to take to rebuild their home.
Rushlow has been out of school since the fire. She’ll return to class April 12.