Burned-out couple appeals for assistance

A young Courtenay couple is looking for help after losing everything — including their two dogs — in a house fire just over a week ago.

CHERIE MITCHELL and her boyfriend Don Townsend lost everything — including their two dogs — to fire.

CHERIE MITCHELL and her boyfriend Don Townsend lost everything — including their two dogs — to fire.

A young Courtenay couple is looking for help after losing everything — including their two dogs — in a house fire just over a week ago.

Fire destroyed one half of an Archery Crescent duplex and badly damaged the other in the early-morning hours of Sept. 2.

Cherie Mitchell and Don Townsend lived in destroyed side and the couple did not have fire insurance.

“It’s just been such a hard week,” an emotional Mitchell said Monday, adding losing the dogs in the fire was likely the hardest part. “It’s the first day I didn’t cry over the dogs.”

The couple is staying with friends while they look for a new place to live, and try to patch their life up.

A fundraiser at the Waverley Hotel in Cumberland is in the works, and Mitchell plans to set up some donation jars around the Comox Valley.

She also set up a Facebook page that has details about how to make a donation to the couple. It can be found by searching for the e-mail address stressed41@hotmail.com on the social media site.

Mitchell stressed anyone who doesn’t have fire insurance should get it.

“You don’t think it’s going to happen to you,” said Mitchell.

Comox Valley Record