When Kim Lennon went to pick up a dresser and a few other items of furniture from a woman in White Rock, the seller refused to take her money when she recognized Lennon’s son Tommy, who had been interviewed on television after the Dec. 26 fire that destroyed their South Langley home.
“She refused to let me pay,” Lennon recalled.
She and her family have found a new home, close to the Langley border with Surrey and White Rock.
“We only have six months [lease] because it’s an older house and they’re planning to tear it down,” Lennon said.
After the six months, she’s been told if the house doesn’t come down, they can remain on a month-to-month basis.
READ MORE: Donations help family left with nothing after South Langley fire
She is just happy to have a place to live.
“I have a roof over my head and I’m warm,” Lennon told the Langley Advance Times on Sunday, Jan. 10.
She again expressed gratitude for all the help the family has been given, both from family and friends and strangers like the woman in White Rock.
People are fantastic,” she said.
“I just want to thank everybody.”
Lennon added the family is determined to help out others.
“We just want to pay it forward,” Lennon said.
READ ALSO: Langley firefighters respond to two-alarm fire Saturday morning
Lennon was sleeping in her home in the 2000-block of 200th Street on Boxing Day when she suddenly woke up and saw smoke.
“I didn’t see any fire, just black smoke,” she said. “I could hear the crackling.”
It was around 12:30 in the morning.
She alerted everybody in the house, her younger sister Tracey, who was visiting, son Tommy Bennett and tenant Marcus Magalowski, and they all got out safely.
Lennon thought her dogs, Luna a pit bull, and Bullet, a German shepherd, had also fled to safety, but later discovered their bodies in the house.
Family friend Nicole St. Pierre set up a GoFundMe page titled “Fernridge family displaced by housefire” that raised close to $4,000.
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