My twin sister and I came into this world together. At 29 years old, we've navigated life thus far together. In fact, we managed to find a home in the Rodi Arms Apartment building in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, right across the hallway from each other on the second floor with our children.
Everything changed on Saturday, January 22, 2022, a little after midnight.
A neighbor who lived two doors down from me was cooking and fell asleep, causing a fire to start. My twin sister was sleeping in her bedroom with the door shut. After noticing her car in the parking lot, a friend who lived in the building called her phone worried. My sister answered to hear screams that the building was on fire. She opened her bedroom door to an apartment full of black smoke, grabbed what she could and fled for her life. Thankfully, our children were at our mother's house, and I was not home.
While the Penn Hills firefighters extinguished that fire, eventually allowing everyone back in around 2:03 AM, the third floor then caught fire. At first, there was a loud pop, then came a blaze of flames. This one took out the whole building.
Two different fires within hours of each other. There were 30 units in the building filled with displaced tenants. That includes me, my sister, my daughter and son, and my niece.
We face all this uncertainty during a pandemic in the middle of a Pittsburgh winter.
I am Tielyr Terry. I have a 2-year-old daughter who’ll be three on January 26, 2022, and a 9-year-old son.
My sister, Taelyr Terry, has one daughter who is 10-years-old.
To say we are traumatized and devastated is a complete understatement. Everything we've worked and sacrificed so hard for...is gone.
Nonetheless, we remain thankful for our lives and God's grace. This situation could have been such a different story, but, thank God, we're still here to tell it.
Our family is coming together to do what they can, and for that, we are grateful. However, we know more help is needed, which is why we've started this Go Fund Me. We hope to raise enough funds to get back on our feet (i.e., secure basic necessities and housing). We're working on a game plan and are actively communicating with our employers, as well as non-profits, that can potentially help or guide us through this tragic time.
To ask for help during a pandemic, when so many others are facing tough times, is challenging for us, but honestly, we need help.
Please pray for our families--all of the families involved in this. If you can help, a donation of any size will have a huge impact.
Thank you so much, and share this GoFundMe if you can.
Every act of love or compassion makes a difference.
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