MELBOURNE, Fla. – A house fire took everything from an Air Force reservist, a cheerleading coach, two children and two dogs. Now, the community is stepping up to get results for the family.
“Everything’s gone,” Nichole McCarthy said.
McCarthy, a coach with the Satellite Beach Scorpions Youth Football & Cheer league, her husband, an Air Force reservist, their two children – one of them a cheerleader, and their two dogs are all staying with friends now.
“Right now, you know, as a military family, we always say one day at a time. But it’s one second at a time, one minute at a time,” McCarthy said. “We don’t really know at this point.”
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Step-by-step since Saturday night, when neighbors at the Deer Lakes neighborhood near the Pineda Causeway recorded the smoke blanketing the McCarthy house.
McCarthy said the family was out to dinner and they have no idea how the fire started.
“We just saw the smoke once we backed into the driveway and opened the garage,” she said. “It was pitch black, full of smoke.”
In addition to friends giving her family a place to stay, even more help is coming in for necessities like clothes and school supplies.
The cheerleading and youth football league started a fundraiser that’s already collected more than $6,000.
“It’s really amazing to see just the community pulling together. Everybody’s just been stepping in to do whatever they could,” McCarthy said.
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