EMPTY STOCKING FUND: Fire hit twice, and Red Cross was there
Lightning, it's said, never strikes twice in the same place. Sometimes fires do, at least to the same people.
For the second Christmas in a row the Stahl family is starting from scratch.
In January 2007 they escaped the inferno when the Castle West Apartments went up in flames. Lacey Stahl and her husband, Joe, jumped from their third-floor balcony after tossing their two children into blankets held by rescuers below. The family survived but lost everything.
"We didn't know what to do, but The Red Cross was there and helped us with an emergency card for clothes so we'd have something to wear for the next day," Lacey Stahl said.
Fearful of living in another apartment, the Stahls moved into a house. In June the baby-sitter called Lacey and Joe at work saying the house was on fire. She and the couple's two children got out; their pets weren't as fortunate. The family had barbecued the night before and flames broke out in the backyard barbecue pit, spreading to the back porch and into the house.
"Our whole upstairs burned, and the basement flooded," Lacey Stahl said. "Then the firemen said the house had asbestos so we couldn't have any of our stuff."
Once again the Red Cross was there, giving them emergency toiletries, even toothbrushes. Lacey Stahl took a voucher to Wal-Mart that night to buy pajamas for everyone.
The Red Cross helped them with a deposit for their new house, and they have started over once again.
The American Red Cross Pikes Peak Chapter is one of 14 area agencies receiving money from The Gazette-El Pomar Foundation Empty Stocking Fund. "They really deserve it," Lacey Stahl said.
"Luck has not been with us the past few years. Last year we had to start all over again for Christmas, and we're doing it again this year," Lacey Stahl said. She and her husband are working full time.
Their children, daughter Hailey, 6, and son Jacob, 3, are "doing a lot better, but any time they hear firetrucks they get scared," Lacey Stahl said.
"Things are getting back to normal, but I don't know what we would have done without the Red Cross," she added. "I am very grateful and feel they're a miracle for all of us.
"If there was no Red Cross, I especially feel that over 500 Castle West people would have been displaced. All of these families would not have had help at all and they lost everything."
TO DONATE
Make a secure donation at www.fillanemptystocking.org. Call 476-1673 to make a credit card or stock donation over the phone. Checks can be made payable to the Empty Stocking Fund and mailed to P.O. Box 400, Colorado Springs, CO 80901.
