GoFund Me Started For Oak Lawn Family Displaced By Mobile Home Fire

OAK LAWN, IL — Family, friends and neighbors are rallying to support a family of four whose home was lost in a tragic fire Thursday afternoon in the Airway Mobile Home Community in Oak Lawn. A GoFund Me campaign has been created to raise money to help the Sanchez family get back on their feet after losing all their belongs and to rent equipment to clean up damages.

Fifteen minutes before the fire started, John Sanches, 25, and his wife, Sylvia Garcia, 24, had taken their young children, Jiraiya, 2, and Nalenya, 1, to the splash pad at Anderson Park in Hometown, when they saw ominous black smoke billowing in the sky. John and Sylvia continue enjoying the summer day with their children.

>>> Fire Tears Through Mobile Home, Damages 4 Others

“We noticed the smoke while playing,” Garcia told Patch. “We didn’t think it was our home until our neighbors started calling us and asking if we were inside.”

The Oak Lawn Fire Department fought gusty winds and were able to contain the fire to the Sanchez family’s mobile home, which incinerated in 17 minutes. Later in the evening, their neighbors gave food, money, baby clothes and diapers to the couple.

The evening after the fire, Garcia was able to salvage a bracelet that belonged to her late mother and a canister of her firstborn child’s cremains from the ashes. All of their other belongings are lost.

Sanches and Garcia, who’ve been together since they were 14, were married last weekend. The American Red Cross has put the family up in a hotel for the next several days.

The carries basic homeowners' insurance, but they don’t know how much their policy will cover. Sanchez’s relatives rented heavy equipment and a Dumpster and began clearing out the debris Friday, less than 24 hours after the family lost their home. The Village of Oak Lawn requires residents to submit a reasonable timeline for removing fire debris quickly before it becomes a safety hazard and fines are imposed.

For now, Sanches and Garcia are just trying to get back on their feet and move forward. To make a donation, visit "Help A Young Family Who Lost Everything In A Fire."

GoFund Me is a Patch promotional partner