A family of 6 who lost everything they own in a house fire.

Oki, my name is Chelsea Eagle Plume I am fundraising for my dad's family which consists of himself, his wife, two daughters and a grandson who have been displaced from their home due to a devastating housefire.

I am the eldest daughter of my dad's children, in which he has 4 daughters and 4 grandchildren all under the age of 9 years old. Over the July weekend, while making a quick run into town, my dad's and our childhood home caught on fire and burned completely down, along with surrounding structures in the yard. My youngest sister was cut badly on her hand by breaking her bedroom window in desperate hope that her boyfriend was not still asleep inside. She will go through surgery to repair tendons as she cannot fully close or open her hand. We are thankful that everyone is safe and did not lose their life to the house fire.

These past few days I have been helping my family access emergency assistance to help shelter, transport, cloth, and feed all 6 family members that lived in the home. While some aid has helped they have only been sheltered for 3 of the 5 days displaced in the local town Inn. We are working on finding a longer-term emergency shelter that could continue to provide a clean and safe space for them. While we wait for the fire report and more direction on what will happen with their home, we have been hit with another heartbreaking moment in our lives. Our grandmother, my dad's mom, has been called home yesterday. When she passed on she was surrounded by her family and the many great-grandchildren she was so loving towards. My grandma chose to live the remainder of her days happily and not fight the cancer that was in her body.

The funds raised from here will help my dad and his wife secure a longer-term emergency shelter for all 6 of them, and provide privacy for our dad to grieve the loss of his mom, our grandma. Adding to the assistance the funds will help them acquire transportation as my dad's vehicle was severely damaged and undrivable due to being in the yard, it was waiting on a repair. In the meantime, our second oldest sister provided my dad with her vehicle for making trips into town to do laundry and grocery shopping. Although she provides help with her car she too has a family of 5 and needs her vehicle. The funds will also help my siblings and nephew replace their identification documents, reconnect their communication devices, and cloth and feed them while they all rebuild their lives again.

What we are hoping for is to rebuild our dad's home which in the future will be inherited to our nephew as it was for my dad by his grandparents. Our home was not just a loss to us, but to our extended family as well due to being our great-grandparent's home - many have childhood memories here as well.

We are members of the Kainai Nation located in Southern Alberta also known as the Blackfoot or Blood Tribe First Nation. My dad as a baby was given to my grandparents and raised by them. Being so remote on the land he was saved from the residential school system, but could not escape the effect of assimilation tactics directed at on-reserve Blackfoot members. His wife was part of the 60's scoop devastation. She was taken from her parents and adopted out along with her siblings and grew up in a system that to this day affects her deeply emotionally and physically. When I tell the story of my parents I too am affected because I understand the trauma of their deep hurt and pain and why some things in life are a struggle for them both. Being the oldest sister I am always educating my sisters on understanding what it means to survive the 60's Scoop, First Nations Assimilation harm, and the residential school system. I worry for my sisters because they are young and still finding their way in life along with unknowingly holding the pain and trauma of our parents within them. We hope that with our nieces and nephews, the chain of these traumas will break. This is why it is so important that we build our home back, here we fill our home with love, safety, and understanding. We celebrate each other here with birthdays BBQs and Christmas Dinners.

Your help is helping an entire family of 5 generations continue to grow and heal in the comfort and safety of their own home once again, and all the steps in between from now going forward.