Help A Special Needs Family Hit By CO Wildfire

Our closest friends, a beautiful family from Louisville, Colorado: Bob, Bridget, Nathan, and Natalie lost their home and their neighborhood community of the past 22 years in the devastating Marshall Fire near Boulder, Colorado. Their home and the neighborhood where they invested their time in raising their kids and building community were tragically destroyed in the intense urban wildfires in Colorado on December 30th.

 

 

The family lost almost all of their possessions. They had little warning as the fire spread quickly in and around their neighborhood. Warnings came from their neighbors across the street who could see the fire encroaching on their back yards. Without hesitation, the family gathered a few of their essentials including the family cat and loaded into their vehicles. After one turn out of the neighborhood being blocked by oncoming fire, they were able to safely evacuate the fire zone and reach safety.

 

The images below of their neighborhood shows the destruction of their home and the tragic devastation of the whole neighborhood.

 

Neighborhood lost after wildfire

 

 

Home lost after wildfire

 

This beautiful and tight knit family of 4 are safe and have the fortune of having extended family close by to provide some critical basic support for them. It is hard to internalize the losses felt by the our friend’s family and the hundreds of other homeowners but for my friends, this was more than a loss of a house, it was truly their home. However cliché that may sound, the challenges they face are beyond just the physical possessions, it is around the home they created.

 

Bob & Bridget’s Family Home

 

Bob & Bridget – their house was their home, they created a stable home and environment for their family and home was also their neighborhood community that they helped create and have supported them throughout the years.

 

Nathan (23) their autistic son who lives at home, home was his bedrock, his supportive environment, and the home-base that he built his much needed routines around

 

Natalie (18) – first-year student at nearby CU, her childhood home from the day she was born and a safe spot to return to as she has started to branch out on her own.

 

 

 

Bob, Bridget and family feel blessed and incredibly grateful that they all escaped without harm and are fortunate to have family nearby to provide some much-needed foundational support. But, as is typical of Bob and Bridget, their concerns are more for their neighbors and community that have been similarly impacted rather than their needs.

 

Through your generosity, the fundraiser will be used to help them start to rebuild their lives addressing both short term and mid-term needs for stabilizing their current situation and re-creating their home. Short-term needs and possessions like clothes, food, cookware, additional special needs support for Nathan and other day to day staples to just get along when they are without a home. Longer term needs like replacing the possession lost in their house that will enable them to re-create a home and not just a house.

 

Given their concern about their community, any additional funding received beyond addressing the basics for the family not covered by insurance or other assistance will be funneled back into the neighborhood and community that have been similarly devastated through this catastrophic event.

 

Thanks for your consideration in helping our close friends and the community of Louisville recover and heal.

 

---------

We, the English Family from Portland, along with many close friends of Bob & Bridget are sponsoring this GoFundMe fundraiser page. We have been close friends since our high school and college days. A period of over 40 years. We are all family.