BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Several community members are gathering to raise money for the family of the Dartmouth Avenue fire that happened on New Year's Eve.
One family member Regina Hutchins-Winstead speaks out and tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person that her family is in dire need of rebuilding a home again.
"When there's a fire that's devastating, you have nothing," she says. "So everything is needed."
The hurting family member is the sister of Lisa Liggans, the grandmother that's still in the hospital after the New Year's Eve house fire that killed five children between the ages of two to ten on Dartmouth Avenue.
Lisa Liggans: 63 year old female. Critical condition at ECMC.
Infant: 7 month old female. Treated and released from Oishei Children's Hospital.
Aniyah Green: Deceased. 10 year old female.
Joelle Liggans. Deceased. 8 year old female.
Jalissa Liggans. Deceased. 7 year old female.
Denise Keith. Deceased. 4 year old female.
Nehemiah Robinson. Deceased. 2 year old male.
"She is presently in a medically induced coma, so she's unable to receive or give information at this time," Hutchins-Winstead says.
Liggans' seven-month-old grandchild, who was also in the house, survived.
Yet, in a time of grief comes unity as community members like those at Cornerstone Church Ministries gathered Wednesday to accept physical donations at their ministry.
Now Duane Price says the tremendous loss of five grandchildren is taking a devastating toll on Lisa's husband Clarence Liggans and the couple's two grown daughters.
"The youngest daughter there she was in the house she was 18," the pastor says. "What she's going through knowing that her efforts didn't reach what she wanted to which was to get everybody out safe."
So far, GoFundme donations have raised more than $100,000 for the Liggans family.
"They lost their house so we're looking for a home for them to go to," Pastor Price says.
You can click here for the GoFundMe link to the Liggans family fundraiser.
Clothing donations are also currently being accepted for the family members who survived the fire. The following sizes are being accepted for family members:
Grandfather: Size medium in tops, size medium / 32x30 in bottoms, and a size 8/9 shoe.
18-year-old daughter: Size medium/large in clothes, size 9 shoe
7-month-old baby girl: Any clothes in this size range
Donations to the family can be dropped off at: Engine 34, Ladder 7 at 2833 Main Street in Buffalo
