Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Buffalo community has once again shown its support for fellow neighbors by donating to the family who lost their grandchildren in a tragic house fire.
On New Year's Eve, a fire broke out at 270 Dartmouth Avenue in Buffalo, which took the lives of five children, 10-year-old Aniyah Green; 8-year-old Joelle Liggans; 7-year-old Jalissa Liggans; 4-year-old Denise Keith; and 2-year-old Nehemiah Robinson.
Clarence Liggans, owner of the home and grandfather to the children, who was away at the time of the fire, called his pastor, Pastor Duane Price of Cornerstone Church Ministries, who came right away to his aid.
"He said, 'Bishop, my house is on fire.' And I said, 'I'll be right there.' I jumped in my car and ran straight to him and when I got there, one of the firefighters, pulled me to the side and he said, 'I want you to know that there is some loss involved.' He said, 'I'm gonna give you a min to get yourself together. That's why I'm telling you now, so that you can work on pulling yourself together as you get down in the street.' That's what I knew, even before Clarence did, that there was some loss involved," said Pastor Price.
The pastor then set up a GoFundMe page for the family and with the aid of Buffalo elected officials spreading the word, the page grew very quickly with donations, "That GoFundMe page is nothing short of amazing. There is so much love being shown through that GoFundMe page. I am totally in awe by the numbers that I'm seeing. It started out real slow and Councilman Rasheed Wyatt and Council President and Bishop Darius Pridgen said, 'Okay, we will get this on Facebook Live.' We got together, we did a live and the page went overnight."
Since Wednesday afternoon, the page has reached over $98,000 in donations.
But the support doesn't stop there. Pastor Price, with the help of Lisa Liggans' sister, Regina Hutchins-Winstead, have started collecting donations from the community, "We have donations of clothing, we have other goods, like blankets and things like that. People are donating all kinds of things and we are grateful for everything," Regina says. "What do they need? Everything. The house is a total loss, so they don't have anything. They don't have clothes. They don't have blankets, they don't have shoes, they don't have socks. It's winter, undergarments, coats. Everything is needed. Everything is needed."
"It takes a village, is a very true statement," says the pastor. "Especially when you're dealing with something like this and you lose everything and you lose family, all of your possessions. You're wondering, 'How are you going to bounce back? It takes a family and I'm so glad that the church family is there, but even the church family needed help and that's what it's gonna take all of us and that's what's happening. Everybody is pouring in."
Regina also provided me an update on her sister Lisa's status in the ECMC burn unit, "Lisa is in critical condition. She is stabilized. She is being kept in a medically-induced coma, so she is not giving or receiving information except between her and her God right now."
Pastor Price says he was collecting until 5 p.m. on Wednesday but this won't be the only time he will open his church for donations, "I'm gonna make arrangements for others who want to come so that we can give more."
The church has also recently set up a donation fund at the Keybank on East Delevan, where the community can continue to give to the family, "We just want to say thank you. We couldn't do this without the community, not at all and they have been a great help and I know once the family is ready to talk, I know they're going to be ecstatic, showing their appreciation and don't stop donating, it's never enough. They have to start over. They need somewhere to live," Pastor Price says.
"I don't think that the family will ever fully recover, losing five children so suddenly. However, I think that Buffalo does what Buffalo always does and they come through in tragedy. You know, this family obviously did not intend nor prepared to bury five children all at once, nor to lose all of their worldly possessions. So I think part of our recovery is in helping others and whether people can give financially or just simply say, a prayer for them or send something to them. That's how we begin to recover from such a loss," said Buffalo Common Council President Darius Pridgen.