Overwhelming. That’s how volunteers and displaced residents describe walking into the suite at Hôtel Shediac that’s currently piled wall-to-wall with bags of donations.
“In 12 hours, 200 bags arrived, and they just kept coming,” said Barb Reisler, who’s been volunteering since Friday, the day after the fire.
The donations have all been brought by the community, to give to the victims of a disastrous apartment building fire that took place in Shediac in the early morning hours of Oct. 29.
The entire 36-unit building was lost, leaving an estimated 70 people without access to their belongings and without a place to stay.
Fire crews said the 36-unit apartment building at 25 Cornwall Rd. in Shediac was a complete loss after a fire on Oct. 29. (Victoria Walton/CBC)
Reisler said she saw a call out for volunteers on social media and wanted to help because the same thing happened to her nearly 40 years ago.
“I know the fear; I know what it’s like,” she said. “So I had to come and help.”
Clothing donations cut off
Over the past five days, Reisler and about 15 other volunteers have been taking turns folding clothes, sorting them by size and gender, carefully lining up shoes, and organizing linens for displaced residents to help themselves to.
“We help them to choose stuff, tell them what they can take,” said Lillian LeBlanc, another volunteer helping with hotel donations.
This story was brought to Nouzie by RSS. The original post can be found on https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/shediac-fire-community-response-9.7407988?cmp=rss
