£5,000 crowdfunded for Borders family who lost home in blaze
Earlston residents have raised more than five thousand pounds overnight for a family who’ve been left homeless just days before Christmas, following a fire.
Fire crews were called to the Murray family home, on Earlston’s High Street, around 2pm on Sunday afternoon. Nobody was hurt in the blaze but the house has been left “a shell” and all the family have left are the clothes on their back. There are three children, aged 18, 17, and 13.
Family friend Natasha Shewan started an online crowdfunding page to help and right away the donations began flooding in.
Natasha wrote, “Today, Sunday 22nd December, a devastating fire ripped through a house in our village, Earlston, Scottish Borders. The family are well known and very well thought of in the community. There is nothing left inside of the house, just a shell. The family only possess what they have on their back. Please, as a community, can we help the Murray family and show some Christmas spirit.”
The £500 target was surpassed in just a few hours, with the total now sitting at over six thousand pounds. Local café the Tea Cosy have also started taking donations of clothes, toiletries, and household goods.
Natasha later updated the page to say she can’t believe the generosity shown.
The just giving page can be found here: https://bit.ly/2SnpM43
Fire crews from Galashiels, Selkirk and Lauder attended and the town’s high street was closed for more than eight hours as they fought the blaze.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said, “We got the call to attend at 2.11pm on Sunday 22nd December. It was in the High Street Earlston.
“We had four pumps in attendance and they were there until 10.31pm. They had four breathing apparatus and two hose reel jets, and they extinguished the fire using those.”
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