Rebuild Skawinski family home
Donation protected
Meet my best friend, Alex, and her family. She and her family were leading a pretty normal life making ends meet until their life was turned upside down the night of June 12th.
As they were eating dinner, a nasty thunderstorm rolled through their area. It was bad enough that they dropped everything and took the kids (5 and 3 years old) to the basement to wait it out. They noticed that their egress window was filling with water. Her husband Paul started to try to deal with the water seaping in on the inside, while Alex went out to see if she could bail out the water from the egress well. After a short while with the water above her rain boots, she realized it was a losing battle. The city storm drain in the neighborhood was backed up and blasting water out like a volcano. The whole yard and road were flooded and there would just be more water coming in. As she came back in to tell Paul, they heard a crack as the window started to break. They grabbed their kids and ran upstairs for safety.
The basement flooded all the way up to the celing, leaving their entire basement, including the electrical box, furnace, hot water heater and all of their stored belongings, underwater. Therefore, the house is completely unsafe to live in because electricity cannot be restored until all of the wireing and breakers are replaced. We are all incredibily grateful they walked away without any major injuries.
Like most of us, Alex and Paul do not carry flood insurance. As such, their homeowners insurance is not offering any aid. Additionally, in order to qualify for disaster aid, more than 50% of their livable space has to have damage. Since only half of their basement was finished, they do not qualify for that aid either. Unless they can get the city to accept their claim, they will have absolutely ZERO finacial aid to help them get their house back to a livable state.
Thanks to some excellent friends, they have a safe place to stay. Sadly they had to send their kids to live with their grandparents for a while and are missing them terribly. They just want to get the whole family back together in their home again as soon as possible.
In order to achieve that, they are facing at least $30,000 in clean up and repairs, including gutting their basement, replacing their electrical box and wiring as well as their furnace and hot water heater, just to get their house back to a livable state. To completely restore the house to its previous state, it will be another $25,000 in repairs. In addition, they lost about $15,000 worth of belongings, totalling $70,000!
We are asking for any contributions (great or small) to help ease their financial burden, as they seek to get back to their home and their daily life. No contribution is too small.
If any of you know me, you know that asking for help, especially finacial help, is not something I do unless as a last resort. The same is true for Alex and her family. However, this is my best friend - someone who would do anything to help me in a time of need. So I am doing the same to help her and her family through this challenging time.
Thank you all for any help that you can provide!
As they were eating dinner, a nasty thunderstorm rolled through their area. It was bad enough that they dropped everything and took the kids (5 and 3 years old) to the basement to wait it out. They noticed that their egress window was filling with water. Her husband Paul started to try to deal with the water seaping in on the inside, while Alex went out to see if she could bail out the water from the egress well. After a short while with the water above her rain boots, she realized it was a losing battle. The city storm drain in the neighborhood was backed up and blasting water out like a volcano. The whole yard and road were flooded and there would just be more water coming in. As she came back in to tell Paul, they heard a crack as the window started to break. They grabbed their kids and ran upstairs for safety.
The basement flooded all the way up to the celing, leaving their entire basement, including the electrical box, furnace, hot water heater and all of their stored belongings, underwater. Therefore, the house is completely unsafe to live in because electricity cannot be restored until all of the wireing and breakers are replaced. We are all incredibily grateful they walked away without any major injuries.
Like most of us, Alex and Paul do not carry flood insurance. As such, their homeowners insurance is not offering any aid. Additionally, in order to qualify for disaster aid, more than 50% of their livable space has to have damage. Since only half of their basement was finished, they do not qualify for that aid either. Unless they can get the city to accept their claim, they will have absolutely ZERO finacial aid to help them get their house back to a livable state.
Thanks to some excellent friends, they have a safe place to stay. Sadly they had to send their kids to live with their grandparents for a while and are missing them terribly. They just want to get the whole family back together in their home again as soon as possible.
In order to achieve that, they are facing at least $30,000 in clean up and repairs, including gutting their basement, replacing their electrical box and wiring as well as their furnace and hot water heater, just to get their house back to a livable state. To completely restore the house to its previous state, it will be another $25,000 in repairs. In addition, they lost about $15,000 worth of belongings, totalling $70,000!
We are asking for any contributions (great or small) to help ease their financial burden, as they seek to get back to their home and their daily life. No contribution is too small.
If any of you know me, you know that asking for help, especially finacial help, is not something I do unless as a last resort. The same is true for Alex and her family. However, this is my best friend - someone who would do anything to help me in a time of need. So I am doing the same to help her and her family through this challenging time.
Thank you all for any help that you can provide!
Organizer and beneficiary
Amanda Mitchell
Organizer
Rochester, MN
Alex Skawinski
Beneficiary
