Date: Mon 01-Jan-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

edink-fire-Rosini

Full Text:

Fire Kindles A Community Response

It has been a week since the Rosini family was burned out of their Old Green

Road home, and process of recovering from the Christmas week fire has only

just begun for the family. The shock of the sudden and irrevocable loss of a

home, however, has rippled out through the community to produce for the

Rosinis an ever-widening circle of friends.

Pat Happel, a neighbor who stood in the snow comforting Stephen Rosini after

he reached the scene of his burning home, said that in the days that followed

the fire Newtown spontaneously rallied to the aid of the family. After people

heard that the Rosinis lost virtually all their possessions in the blaze that

started, ironically, in the Christmas tree, Mrs Happel's phone rang off the

hook with offers of assistance. So much clothing was proffered that some

donations had to be gratefully declined.

Despite all the modern mechanisms that are supposed to protect us from

calamity - safety products, alarms, and ultimately insurance - personal

disasters still strike. If we are lucky, as the Rosinis were, no one gets

hurt. But the trauma to lives that are completely disrupted, even temporarily,

still undermines the foundation of security and stabilty on which family life

is built. When this happens, we go looking for other foundations to buttress

us. In reaching out to the Rosinis, Newtown has proven once again that it is a

community with a rock-solid foundation that stands up to the worst blows of

fate with the strength of good will and compassion.