Help the Peden Family Rebuild

Hello everyone,

My name is Kaitlyne Peden, and my family and I are starting this fundraiser in order to raise funds for us to start rebuilding after we lost everything in the White Rock Lake fire on Sunday August 15th 2021, on Six Mile Creek Rd in Vernon, BC.

Sadly, like many others, we were unable to obtain insurance in our area due to location, and other factors. Never in a million years did we even think that a fire 60km away would make it to our backdoor, and ultimately burn through our property.

To say we are devasted is an understatement.

My parents, Ted & Michelle, bought our property in 2002 as nothing but a bare field and a treed hill. My younger brother was a newborn, my brothers and sister were teenagers, and I was a toddler at the time. They struggled for years to get our property and house, which was originally a school modular, into what it was before the events of August 15th. Many of our neighbors and friends watched as they slowly built it up over the years, showing more and more progress as time went on. Now, nothing is left to show how hard my parents and older brothers struggled and worked to make it into something. Not only did we lose our home, but all the memories that went along with it.

We are hoping to raise $50, 000, which is just a fraction of the cost we will be facing in the coming months as we try to rebuild and house ourselves. Even though our home is gone, my parents still have a mortgage payment every month and my dad is now unable to work his job out of town, and cannot find any close to home.

If you made it this far, thank you. Any little thing will help us, even if just sharing our story so more people see how many of us have suffered through this wildfire. It has truly been a nightmare for many of us.

As of August 26, the regional district still has not verified to us that we suffered structural loss even though we've already seen it ourselves.