Niagara’s true spirit evident in fire response

Sometimes it takes something so bad to remind us there is so much good still out there in the community.

The catastrophic fire at Pioneer Flower Farms in St. Catharines this past weekend devastated — financially and emotionally — the Sikking family.

They had built the business over the years into one of the largest bulb-forcing farms in the North American greenhouse industry. It produced more than 40 million blooms per year.

The fire destroyed nearly three-quarters of their 650,000-square-foot greenhouse complex on Seventh Street.

But at their lowest moment, and that of their workers – many of whom came here from Mexico — the Niagara community rallied to their support.

To fight the massive blaze, full-time and part-time firefighters from all across the region — Pelham, Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Thorold and Lincoln — answered the call to help the St. Catharines crews on site.

The fire was immense, but so was the danger. Buildings collapsed, the site was huge and it was dark when the first calls for help went out. And there was no certainty that dangerous fumes weren’t in the air.

Approximately 50 farm workers also lost their temporary residences, but the call to help them was also answered quickly and firmly.

Angel Fusarelli, manager at Hernder Estate Wines, used Facebook to start a drive to collect supplies for them. She, too, was overwhelmed by the generous response. Within minutes of asking for donations of bicycles for the displaced workers, she said, a trailer full of them arrived.

The thoughtfulness wasn’t lost on the migrant workers, either. “As soon as they saw there were bikes, that’s when the tears started,” said Fusarelli.

“The smiles and the tears were just unbelievable … they were worried about the clothes on their back and where they were living, but it was the bikes that really hit home.”

She estimated gift cards and cash worth more than $10,000 were dropped off at the winery within days of the fire.

And an online GoFundMe page, called Pioneer Flower Farm Workers, had raised more than $7,000 as of Tuesday morning.

PenFinancial Credit Union has also created an emergency account and will accept donations at its eight branches in Niagara. Churches, too, have joined the effort with their own collections and offers of help.

Speaking for the family-owned business, Kristen Sikking has sought help from anyone willing to lend tools to assist in the cleanup, since their own were mostly lost in the fire. They can be dropped off at 1629 Third Ave. in St. Catharines.

Donations from the community are also being collected by the Johnson family at a plaza at 318 Ontario St.

Incredibly, so many donations of things like clothes, toiletries and other supplies have been made that organizers have temporarily stopped taking them to allow time to sort through and organize what they’ve already received.

From so much devastation, it has been heartwarming to see the neighbourly response from all corners of Niagara. Possibly it’s the realization that all of us are just as vulnerable to having our own lives turned around in an instant, also through undeserved misfortune, that makes us respond in this way.

In the coming months our municipal boundaries will likely be redrawn or in some cases eliminated outright. But that’s all paperwork.

The spirit of community all of Niagara showed this week is here to stay.