Meredith Kerr
Journal Staff
Family Benefit - (Left to Right) Lori Letourneau (Community Family Benefit), Trennah Murray (recipient), and Bobbi Jones (Community Family Benefit) pose for a photo together. The St. Paul and Community Family Benefit Society gave the Murray family $3,000 following a fire that destroyed the family's home in September. Photo supplied.
The biggest thing Trennah Murray,has learned in the month since her family’s home near Mann Lake burned down on Sept. 19, is how quickly a community can come together.
“We had a friend who posted online about needing kids clothes and stuff like that, and his house was full of donations that very day, just from people from Bonnyville all the way out to Lamont, people coming down and bringing stuff over,” said Murray, as she describes the experience she and her family went through.
Trennah, her husband Ryan, and their four children - Jayden, 15, Johnathan, 14, Olive, 10, and Daryn, 4; were all asleep when the house caught fire.
“My cousin went downstairs for a glass of water, looked out the window, and was like ‘oh my gosh the roof’s on fire’,” said Murray.
“He came and woke me up, and then I got all the kids and threw them in the truck and drove the truck out of the yard because I didn’t want them near the fire . . . Our driveway is about 30 feet so I drove them to the end of that, and then called 911,” said Murray.
Murray said the Ashmont and Mallaig fire departments were the ones to respond to the call. They made it out to the property within 15 minutes.
“The Ashmont Fire Department sent in two of their girls while they were putting out the fire and they got all the pictures off the walls. That was the biggest blessing. And they even took out my filing cabinet,” said Murray, her voice choking slightly.
“So all my paperwork, they took it out and brought it out in to my garage so I didn’t have to reorder anything like birth certificates, or healthcare cards, nothing. It was all there.”
According to Murray, the fire was caused by a combustible beam that shifted too close to the chimney as the house, built in 1978, aged. She said their insurance company is calling it a total loss. Although the structure of the house is still standing for now, there’s no roof on it and they’ll need to rebuild from scratch.
Along with the wider community, the Red Cross, County of St. Paul FCSS, and the St. Paul and Community Family Benefit have all helped the Murray’s since the fire.
Murray said while they’re extremely grateful for all the help from all the groups, the $3,000 they received from the family benefit had the biggest impact.
“We received a lot of donations from a lot of people, but that (money) was the biggest thing because obviously we both had to take time off work. So that helped accommodate for our cost of living, because we still have to pay all our bills and everything. So that was a blessing because we were actually able to take the time off to get ourselves situated,” said Murray.
The next biggest impact for them was how the Red Cross worked with Lakeland Family Eyecare to replace Trennah and her daughter's glasses right away.
The Murray family all stayed with relatives in the area for the first month after the fire, and has since moved in to a rental property in St. Paul owned by St. Paul Abilities Network, Trennah’s employer.
“That’s a whole other world for us because we’ve never lived in St. Paul before. That’s a big adjustment for the kids,” said Murray.
Lynda Munro is the communications co-ordinator for the St. Paul and Community Family Benefit. She said the group was glad to be able to help the Murray family.
“They have children, and they lost everything,” said Munro. “Sometimes it’s not a tragedy, it’s just a crisis. We help the people who fall through the cracks . . . We’ve helped a lot of people that have had premature babies, or children who have to go to the hospital in Edmonton,” said Munro.
The St. Paul and Community Family Benefit hosts an event on New Year’s Eve every year to raise money to help families in the community.
“We don’t have a set number; as long as we have money we’ll help them,” said Munro.
The group gives financial assistance to families who meet their criteria of experiencing an unexpected tragedy or crisis, and is not already being assisted by other groups.
“We are in the season of gearing up for our benefit dance on New Year's and will be contacting people to get silent auction items because that’s where most of our money comes from,” said Munro.
The St. Paul and Community Family Benefit is looking for volunteers to make phone calls and collect items for the silent auction. Anyone interested in helping, or who has an item to donate can contact the silent auction co-ordinator, Marilyn Shapka, at 780-645-0567.
