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Fundraiser to help family who lost home to blast, fire
The event will take place today and tomorrow.
GIRARD — It has been little more than a week since Denise Seitz and her family lost everything they own in a fire touched off by a gas explosion, but members of the community are doing everything they can to get the family back on track.
Seitz lived in a home in a quiet neighborhood on Washington Avenue until Sept. 18. On that day she, along with her mother and two children, were pulled from the house as it began to burn to the ground.
The family is safe and staying with family members but must now rebuild their lives.
Al Sterchi, owner of GTA Karate and instructor to the Seitz children, said helping the family rebuild should be a community effort. Sterchi and other supporters have spent the last week organizing a community sale with all proceeds going to the family.
“Part of our teaching is that martial arts do not hurt people, but instead help people, so when we learned that they lost everything and have nothing, we decided we had to do something,” Sterchi said.
The something that Sterchi and his group of organizers decided to do is a large-scale community sale consisting of clothes, food and household items.
The fundraiser will begin at 9 a.m. today in the parking lot of Sterchi’s Karate school on U.S. Route 422 in downtown Girard. The sale will continue all day and pick up again Sunday.
“It’s going to be quite an event, I hope,” Sterchi added. “It is going to be much like a flea market. We are getting a lot of items. My phone is ringing off the hook. We plan to have everything, furniture, knickknacks, everything.”
Sterchi said there will also be live entertainment and a large bake sale. Girard High School students will help with booths and sales at the fundraiser, Sterchi said.
Other students at Sterchi’s school of karate also has been collecting donations. One student, he said, collected about $280 in one day.
Seitz said she is more than happy with all the effort put into helping her family after the explosion and fire that took their home.
“They are really working hard for us. Words cannot express my gratitude,” she said. “I am just shocked at, with the way the economy is, people are still willing to give and help. I am overwhelmed.”
Sterchi said he has been calling on businesses and residents in the city and has seen an amazing response. He said business owners from surrounding communities also have inquired as to how they can help.
“We just want the whole community to get involved,” he said.
Police have arrested a man they believe is responsible for damaging a gas line that led to the explosion and fire. Donald F. Shelley, 25, of North Avenue, will be back in municipal court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing on felony counts of arson, vandalism and breaking and entering.
Seitz believes attempted murder should be added to the list of charges. “He could have killed someone,” she said.
jgoodwin@vindy.com