Region shows its best in worst of times

Outpouring of support for victims of senior center fire exemplifies community’s caring spirit.

There is still much unknown about the horrific fire that destroyed the Barclay Friends Senior Living Center in West Chester Thursday night. We don’t know the cause. Tragically, Monday we learned four residents are missing and believed lost in the rubble.

hat we do know is that the absolute worst situation can bring out the absolute best in people.

As flames consumed the structure Thursday night, neighbors already were converging on the site to seewhat they could do to help.

Barclay Friends is located in a residential section ofWest Chester Borough. This is not an isolated, solitary last stop for senior citizens. This is part of a community.

Last Thursday night, as the sky turned an angry orange and flames licked the sky, the community did not forget their elderly neighbors. Instead they ran toward the burning structure. Toward the danger – and their neighbors in need.

They brought blankets. They brought hot coffee. They brought soothing words to their elderly neighbors, many of them still in their beds and wheelchairs, who had been evacuated from their homes and nowwere huddling outside in chilly 40-degree temperatures.

The neighbors joined the more than 400 first responders who battled the blaze.

The help continued Friday. West Chester University opened its gym as a temporary shelter for those displaced by the fire. A row of wheelchairs was neatly lined up outside the facility.

Then Sunday, the outpouring of support in the community continued. Hundreds of residents descended on Good Will Fire Co. to donate needed items such as toiletries, clothes, blankets, even canes and walkers.

The idea for the donation drive was the work of Ted Hartz, president of Good Will. He and his compatriots have been getting plenty of practice. When hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria battered Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, Hartz took the lead in forming a group called Trucks2. They filled tractor-trailers with items needed in the wake of the devastating hurricanes.

But nothing quite prepared themfor what happened Sunday.

Hartz barely had time to open the fire company’s front bay doorswhen the flood of those seeking to help started to arrive.

People who were dropping off items stuck around to help, setting up boxes and sorting things as they were dropped off.

The fire station was quickly overwhelmed as hundreds of people stopped with items to donate to help the effort to bring some sense of normalcy back to the residents of Barclay Friends who had anything but a normal couple of days after being routed from their homes. Many of those evacuated from the senior living community were dementia patients facing a newset of strange circumstances in their already daily struggle.

Police were needed to direct traffic as a long line of cars queued up to get in line outside the fire house.

So great was the response that officials actually had to let people know about 1:30 p.m. that they were going to cut off donations early.

Hartz said the ideawas simple. If they could do it for complete strangers in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, they certainly were not about to turn their backs on people in need in their own back yard.

Hartz said the group had secured a local warehouse to help and that any surplus goodswill be donated to local charities, something that is always welcome during the holiday season.

Sunday afternoon, staff members from Barclay Friends went through the donated items looking for specific goods that could fit some of their patients’ needs.

“The community response is just incredible,” said Chris Karpinski, one of the hundreds who stopped by to deliver items. “But that is just the kind of place that Barclay Friends is.”

We stand on the precipice of the season of thanks, and the holidays. We will await word on what caused Thursday night’s tragedy.

And at the same time offer thanks of our own in knowing that we live in such a giving, welcoming community.

There is still much we don’t know. But what we do know is that, once again, when the very worst strikes, this region is capable of uniting and showing its very best.