Picking up the Pieces

An old swing-set and a rusty basketball hoop are about all thats left of Gary Smiths home near Fithian. He, his son and two daughters are slowly rebuilding their lives after losing almost everything in a recent fire. "In a matter of 15 minutes it was all gone," says Smith a 44-year-old single dad. He tears up as he tells the story of how his family of four returned home to vacation to a gas leak. That leak was coming out of a broken pipe that eventually rubbed up against instillation and sparked the fire that took everything in his home. "The things that cant be replaced, like my boy, hes 17, his crib. I found part of it going through ashes," Smith says. In just two weeks, this family of four has come a long way from an acre of ashes, but they havent done it alone. "The first day that they woke up and were going to school [my daughter Jazmin] didnt have anything to wear. I had an old pair of sweatpants, and I could tell it didnt even match. I could tell that bothered her, and it hurt," Smith says. Thats where the Oakwood Grade School principal and his staff came in. "I asked if they would help out in any way," says Principal Bill Taylor. And did they ever. Just days after the fire the schools front entrance turned into a 24-hour drop-off. The social workers office started looking like a thrift store. Teachers, parents, even students here offered up everything from school supplies and sleeping bags to clothes and a kitchen table. Soon the kids in Oakwoods classrooms were learning lessons other than just language. "Its a life lesson that you need to be there for one another when youre in need an when its difficulty," says first-grade teacher Tracy Hamilton. "That made a very, very bad situation into something we could get through," Smith says. These simple acts of kindness may not be able to bring back the Smith family home, but theyve certainly brought the smile back to two little girls faces.