{"id":16824,"date":"2022-02-17T19:28:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T01:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16824"},"modified":"2022-02-24T19:52:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T01:52:52","slug":"community-responds-to-apartment-complex-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2022\/02\/17\/community-responds-to-apartment-complex-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Community responds to apartment complex fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Ben Lane and Everett Kirkman <\/em>| Photo by Julianne Baker<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Searcy Fire Chief Brian Dunavan said the fire department responded to a 911 call regarding a fire at CJ\u2019s Place apartment complex at 12:30 a.m. last Thursday, Feb. 10. The Daily Citizen reported that all residents safely exited CJ\u2019s Place apartments, located on 1706 E. Moore Ave. However, all 25 families that lived in the apartments have been displaced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Eden Henderson, an intern for 100 Families\u2014 a nonprofit that helps families in crisis \u2014 organized additional volunteers in an effort to help the displaced families affected by the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henderson said the families range in a wide variety of ages and relationships \u2014 some have newborn infants, others have older children, and some are couples or singles. 100 Families is working with 23 of the families affected and 50 total individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201c[100 Families] is working to help resource all the families,\u201d Dr. Andrew Baker, director of the Mitchell Center for Leadership and Ministry, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henderson said the nonprofit\u2019s small staff was not equipped to manage the overwhelming amount of donations, which caused her to contact women\u2019s social club Zeta Rho and men\u2019s social club Knights to ask for assistance. Members of the Harding football team and various University classes volunteered as well. Their time has been spent organizing the donations delivered to 100 Families at 1201 E. Race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henderson said the most immediate need of clothing has been met, but toiletries are still being accepted, and furniture is also needed. 100 Families listed specific donations for each family, which can be found on White County 100 Families Alliance Facebook page. Baker said that specific donation items are listed so that families can receive what they are asking for, and to avoid unneeded donations. Monetary donations are also being accepted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker said the fire typically does not fit within the scope of 100 Families, but the nonprofit has \u201cstepped [up] in a huge way,\u201d by offering assistance. 100 Families has also assisted affected families in finding housing and reimbursement for food loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think as college students it\u2019s hard for us to realize actually how big of a deal this is for the community, being in the middle of organizing everything and working personally with these families, like, they have to start over,\u201d Henderson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Sarah Hale volunteered at 100 Families after seeing Henderson\u2019s Facebook post requesting volunteers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really have enjoyed getting out into the Searcy community,\u201d Hale said. \u201cIt\u2019s very eye-opening to work outside of the Harding community \u2026 Harding students should be the ones going out and making themselves uncomfortable and getting out of the Harding bubble and talking to the people nobody talks to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hale described the donations as a constant incoming stream in which she \u201cmay have made a 10% dent\u201d in organizing Feb. 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a traumatic thing that has just happened, and now these people have to rebuild,\u201d Henderson said. \u201dIt\u2019s been really humbling to see how Searcy has shown up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Searcy Fire Chief Brian Dunavan said the fire department responded to a 911 call regarding a fire at CJ\u2019s Place apartment complex at 12:30 a.m. last Thursday, Feb. 10. The Daily Citizen reported that all residents safely exited CJ\u2019s Place apartments, located on 1706 E. Moore Ave. However, all 25 families that lived in the apartments have been displaced.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15196,"featured_media":16827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[663,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16829,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16824\/revisions\/16829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}