Family needs help after losing everything in house fire

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — A family of eight is in need of help after losing their home to a fire on Monday morning.

Firefighters received the call just after midnight to the home on Pierson drive, where they found the family sitting outside the burning home. Five were taken to a hospital and now two remain in critical condition.

23-year-old Chris Nyiraugendo says his sister, Shantari ran back into the fire to save her 3-year-old son, Jophette. Now she and her toddler are in the hospital in critical condition.

Family friend and mentor to the boys, Philip Manga, has known two of the boys, Oscar and Emmanuel, for years now through the Box2Box program.

He says the family has been through many hardships already, coming to America from Zimbabwe.

“Knowing that you are here in a new country, and your family is all you got, and everything that was in the house, was probably everything they had,” Manga said. “Now it’s all gone just in the midst of everything.”

When their community got word of the fire, Box2Box stepped up to help. Volunteer Justice Thomas says the boys are a bright light in her life.

“It’s kind of like hearing news about your own family, that’s never something that you want to hear, and that’s never something that you want your family to go through,” Thomas said.

Both Thomas and Manga say it takes a village to not only raise a kid, but to help a family.

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