COURIER LIFE, FEBRUARY 5-11, 2021 3
‘Traumatized’
Family looks to community after
losing everything in Bensonhurst fi re
Carolina Chan and her 1-year-old baby (left) are looking to their community for help after a
fi re destroyed their home. Courtesy of Ligia Guallpa
BY ROSE ADAMS
A Guatemalan family with a oneyear
old baby is seeking community
donations after a fi re ravaged their
Bensonhurst home and destroyed all
their belongings on Jan. 25.
Carolina Chan, her husband, and
their infant son lived with fi ve other
relatives in an 85th Street duplex before
an inferno creeped up from the
ground fl oor at 8:30 am on Jan. 25 and
forced them to fl ee.
“I was sleeping with my baby,”
Chan said in Spanish. “My brother-inlaw,
he was the one to wake me up because
I didn’t feel the smoke.”
The family could only grab a few
items before running out of their twofl
oor apartment, Chan said. The building
quickly went up in fl ames, sending
plumes of smoke out of the third-story
windows and charring every surface
of the house.
No residents were hurt, but one
fi refi ghter suffered serious injuries after
an air conditioner fell on his head
from one of the windows and was released
from the hospital the following
evening. Five other fi rst responders
sustained minor injuries.
It took dozens of fi refi ghters more
than an hour to quell the blaze between
19th and 20th avenues — but by then,
the family’s apartment was decimated.
Chan and her husband’s relatives,
who work in the construction industry,
are now temporarily living with nearby
family members. Chan said she’s grateful
everyone made it out safe, but she’s
still shaken by the blaze.
“I can’t sleep well. There are nights
I feel the smell of smoke, like if something
were burning,” she said, adding
that her son seems traumatized
as well. “He hasn’t been able to eat ... I
think because of the fright.”
To support the family’s recovery,
an advocacy group called the Worker’s
Justice Project helped Chan set up a Go-
FundMe campaign, which has raised
$905 out of its $20,000 goal as of Jan. 29.
“We are trying to raise $20,000 to pay
the rent and get the essentials to survive
this coming month. Everything we
raise here will support everyone who
live in the third fl ood,” the page reads.
The campaign comes after Chan’s
downstairs neighbors’ successful
fundraising effort. When the fi re broke
out, seven delivery workers who lived
on the duplex’s ground fl oor also had to
fl ee. But thanks to generous local contributions
to their GoFundMe page,
the roommates are now able to start rebuilding
their lives, one resident said.
“There are people with good hearts
who have helped us,” Miguel Duluxan,
a Guatemalan delivery worker, told
Brooklyn Paper in Spanish. “For them
it might be very little, but for us it’s everything.”
Within less than three days, the fundraiser
has raised more than $26,000 —
substantially more than its $13,000 goal.
Duluxan — a member of the Worker’s
Justice Project — said that the
fi re started somewhere near his roommate’s
room, perhaps because of a problem
with the gas tank. The roommate
woke up the other fi ve men who were
in the house at the time, but not before
they could save their belongings.
“We couldn’t work because we
didn’t have bikes,” he said, adding that
the donations will help them buy replacements.
The fundraiser, which was amplifi
ed on social media by a cadre of
elected offi cials and the Worker’s Justice
Project, has not only helped the delivery
workers get on solid ground, it’s
given them hope, Duluxan said.
“We’re grateful for so many people,
and we don’t know them personally,”
he said. “It lifts our spirit and encourages
us to keep fi ghting.”
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