Asia Nichols, her husband and her eight children lost everything when the roof of their Alexandria home caught fire over the Fourth of July weekend.
The house is still boarded up.
“We had no idea that anything was on fire,” Nichols said. “My alarm wasn’t even going off.”
Nichols believes that fireworks may have caused the fire. Fireworks are illegal in Alexandria. Investigators told News4 the official cause of the fire is still under investigation, but they said they did receive reports of fireworks being set off in the area at the time of the fire, and when they got there, they found fireworks packaging.
The community is now rallying around the family, teachers and parents organized a clothing drive Sunday to help.
“We heard what happened, and we all wanted to help,” said Cynthia Swisher, who helped organize the clothing drive.
Nichols’ children range in age from 2 to 11 years old. Six of them are students at Naomi Brooks Elementary School.
“Getting ready for back to school is stressful enough, and then to start over while you’re trying to get ready back to school for all of those kids — that’s, I can’t imagine it,” Swisher said.
Several families stopped by to drop off all types of new and gently used clothing for the family.
“These are people from our community,” said parent Bridget Sheawestfall. “They are students at our school and their family, my son is classmates with one of the little girls.”
A fundraiser was also set up to collect donations to buy furniture for the family.
Nichols said the overwhelming support from the community has been life changing.
“Really, it’s not for me personally; it’s for my children,” Nichols said. “So to see how many people love and care for my children, it makes me very, very proud and happy, and I want to say thank you to everybody.”
