MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — A West Michigan family is in need of your help after a fire destroyed their home and everything inside.
The family told 13 ON YOUR SIDE their 1950s trailer home wasn't insured, and now, they’re left with only the clothes on their backs.
No one was injured, but a family dog reportedly died of smoke inhalation.
The fire started around 8 a.m. Wednesday on Schow Road in Muskegon County’s Holton Township.
“You got a fire at your house. And it's bad.”
That heart-stopping Wednesday morning call would change all of their lives.
“I just… ran out of the shop,” Timothy Farber said. “I'm just like, you know, thinking the worst.”
But Farber’s kids—two daughters, aged 8 and 11—were safe, having left for the bus stop with mom only minutes earlier.
“I'm not really good with words or anything, but I just thank God my kid’s alive and my wife is alive,” he said.
The memories of his childhood home near Holton, however, are long gone.
“My mom and dad, they, you know, they struggled and they scraped up enough money to move out here when I was a little kid,” Farber recalled. “Just to look at it, you know, just to say goodbye, you know, in some ways – but, God has his plan.”
A small crowd of friends and neighbors tossed scraps into a pair of donated dumpsters Thursday afternoon, beginning the process of sifting through the charred debris in a desperate search for anything the fire may have spared.
“It's amazing how my neighborhood has blessed me and just kept me lifted up through all of this,” Farber said, thanking the various organizations, including several local churches and the American Red Cross, who had already shown their support a day after the fire.
“Thank you. Cousin Tim really needed that. Thank you. Now they just need to rebuild. They need your help.”
The front steps appeared to be the only unaffected portion of the home.
Farber said the family would need virtually everything else, including clothing, food, furniture and money to secure a new home.
Friends and relatives appealed to Facebook on the Farbers' behalf.
The family asked donations be delivered to the Community Center in Holton at 8485 Holton Road.
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