YORK, Maine – Tears easily spring to the eyes of Valerie Mendez when she talks about the past few weeks. The loss of her home to smoke and fire damage in mid-October was heartbreaking, to be sure. But much more importantly, she cries when she considers the grace she has since received from the people of York who have raised more than $6,200 to help her and her family start again.
“I feel so blessed. I am so grateful for the people in my life here. I thank my blessings all the time,” she said.
Mendez was renting a Moulton Lane home with her partner, Robert Gados, her son Matthew and his two children, Alexander, a Coastal Ridge Elementary student, and Jonathon, who is six months old. On the evening of Oct. 14, the family ate a quick meal and then she drove them to watch Alexander play football.
When they returned an hour later, they saw black smoke billowing from the house. York Village fire investigator Dave Apgar said a burner had been left on inadvertently, which started the fire.
“I called for Nero,” the family dog. “But he wasn’t barking and he wasn’t coming out. I went to the door and literally you couldn’t see your hand because of the smoke. The firemen told me later that he passed on quickly. That was good to know.”
It was a moment of reckoning, said Mendez, and in the days that followed she came to understand that most of what she owned either went up in flames or was damaged by smoke beyond repair. The family is living temporarily in a house in Acton, Maine. She’s putting unbelievable miles on her car.
Still, she said, it’s hardly the first time she has started over.
Mendez came to York nearly a decade ago from Chicago, Illinois. “If I could get someone to write a book, I bet it would be a best seller. Where I lived, you couldn’t even do something as simple as leave groceries in a car, you can’t leave a grill outside your house,” she said. “The house was getting robbed. It was a bad area.”
In a twist of fate, Gados had made connection with York woodworker John DeSario, who offered him a job at his Bog Road facility. “It is part of the blessings put in my path. He didn’t know us but he took a chance.”
She said they had next to nothing at the time, “we barely had gas money to make it here.” But still, the family moved to York, a family that still includes Mendez’ son Alex Gutierrez, a 2015 York High School graduate who is now in college. Mendez said because her son was Hispanic, “there were a couple of people who messed with him. But then Officer Cogger (York Police Officer Scott Cogger) helped. He saw Alex’s potential. He got him a computer. We couldn’t afford one. And he helped him become comfortable in school.”
By the time he graduated, Gutierrez was a standout football player and member of the track team, and took a leadership role in TIDALWAVSE, the high school group that promotes drug and alcohol free living.
More blessings, said Mendez, more miracles.
Her longtime neighbor, Carole Auger-Richard, started a Go Fund Me campaign as soon as she heard the news about the fire.
“She’s a good person. She was always there if I needed her. She would check in on me, help me out if I needed it,” said Auger-Richard.
She set a fundraising goal of $5,000 because “I wanted them to get back on their feet. Not just enough to get to the next paycheck, but enough to settle into a house and make sure they can pay the grocery bill, and if they need a mattress, they can go get it.”
The money started coming in immediately, she said. “I was flabbergasted. It just got to me, this outpouring from people. It’s unbelievable, the overwhelming support.” Taking the fund over the top was a $2,500 contribution from “friends in York.”
She attributes the success of the campaign in large part to the “stellar reputations” of Alex and Alexander in the York school system. And Mendez agrees. “It’s about making an impression on people who pass through your life. My Alex and this Alex make a big impression.”
While she is grateful that the family was able to move so quickly to a temporary home in Acton, Mendez wants to get back to York as soon as possible.
“I’m definitely coming back,” she said. As she considers the generosity of those who have helped her out, she said, “I don’t know how I can thank them in words. To me, it must be a miracle. There are no words to say enough. This is my home.”
While the GoFundMe campaign has ended, those wishing to contribute to the family may send a donation to Mendez, c/o Rustic River Custom Finishing, PO Box 745, Rollinsford, N.H. 03869