Help us with cost of materials to rebuild our home, please. 

My name is Arryss Wagner.  My husband David and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on 2/13/21.  For our anniversary, we had planned a weekend away in Blue Ridge, GA..  Four days before we left Athens Georgia where we have lived almost 40 years, we decided to take all three of our children with us for the weekend, rather than leaving them home with a babysitter.   Our kids are Aislynn , 13 year old daughter; Anwen, 7 year old daughter; and Ashton, 5 year old son.  

I am eternally grateful we made that decision.  While we were out of town, our home caught fire and we lost absolutely every material thing we owned, including our 7 pets, except for each other.  The fire Marshall said had we been home, none of us would have made it out, we would have never woken up.  

We found out about the fire when our downstairs tenant called us at 2:15 am on Sunday 2/14/21.  Fortunately, she was able to get out of the house safely.  We immediately started waking our children up and packing all of our stuff.  Hoping to save the animals, my husband called a dear friend, who lives 20 minutes down the road, saying the house was on fire and could he please go there. 

I called our pet sitter, hoping that our dog, Tonka was with her. She said “No baby he’s at home”. Before we left Blue Ridge my husband’s buddy arrived at our home, just in time to see the firemen pull Tonka out of the house and start CPR trying to resuscitate him.  He called us and told us they were unable to save him.
Our home was completely gutted by the fire.  We lost our 15 month old Rottweiler Tonka, 5 YO cat Layla, 4 YO cat Toothless, 3 YO cat Marmalade, 2 YO cat Simba, 2 YO cat Kitten, and 4 YO mini-floppy eared bunny Floof of Doom.  The fire Marshall says they did not suffer; they just went to sleep from the carbon monoxide poisoning. 

My grandfather built our home in 1964.  We had generations of antiques in it that were passed down through the family.  My brother and I inherited the house from our father and due to probate taking a few years, we were unable to obtain homeowner’s insurance.  There is no insurance to rebuild our home, and we will have to pay out of pocket to fix it.  My husband has been in construction for 25 years, so he has the know-how.  My husband estimates it will take $40,000 just for the supplies to rebuild.  

Our first step, is to clean out all of our ruined belongings, it will take about 10-15 loads in a 30 yard dumpster. To rent a dumpster around here it will be $400. Second step will be to demo (tear down/rip out) all of the burned pieces of the home. Our house was all brick, and the roof is still intact and just burned badly on the underside.  My husband and I will be working on it every evening after he gets off of work and on the weekends.  

Please help us rebuild our home.  Even as little as $5-$10 can make a huge difference.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading our story, and please share it!