04/17/2025
Hi everyone. Jamie here. It is incredible devastating to be making this post and it still feels incredibly surreal that this has happened.
On Thursday April 3rd, myself, my mom, and my stepdad were involved in a house fire and escaped with our lives.
A lot of you know my family and I personally. You have seen my mom Jennifer, who often helps out at our restaurant. She and my stepfather had their home (which has been my childhood home since age 9) catch fire and burn down in Shanty Bay. My mom and I are okay, however my stepdad was brought to RVH with the initial thought of having second degree burns. When he was assessed at RVH, they decided it was best to transport him to Sunnybrook as they have a special burn unit, and that is where they diagnosed him with third degree burns to his entire right arm, left hand, face, and head. He just underwent skin graft surgery for his right arm last week, and he is healing well, but in extreme pain. The doctors are still observing the healing process of his face, and are hoping they don’t have to do surgery on the face if it heals well. However, it’s looking like he will probably need the surgery. He will be in ICU for at least another month.
My brother Jonathan and my dad Patrick were also living at the house, and fortunately they were not home at the time. However, all of their belongings are now gone. Along with my mom and stepdad’s belongings. I recently moved out a year or so ago and I left half my closet at my parent’s house, so I’m at least a bit fortunate to have some clothing. But the rest of my family, have literally nothing.
On top of the house being our family home, my mom and stepdad also had their own Traditional Chinese medicine practice and acupuncture clinic in the basement as a home based office, and that is now gone too. All their years of hard work building themselves and their practice up in the Barrie/Oro-Medonte area initially in the Kozlov Mall, from 2004 until 2013, then moving home as a home based office, till now, gone, in a split moment.
It took the volunteer firefighters 11 minutes to respond. By that time, half of the house was already on fire due to the extremely high winds that day. It was incredibly heartbreaking to watch my mom holding tears back watch her home and all their years of hard work burn down.
My stepdad is a 3rd generation Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and Acupuncturist and has been helping thousand of patients for over 50 years. He is also the sole practitioner of my mom and his practice. With him being in hospital recovering from his severe burns and not being able to practice, this means my mom will be without an income for the foreseeable future. Still, with bills to pay, and a mortgage to pay, and no income.
So far, insurance is taking a long time to kick in and we have not received much help from them yet. But most importantly I’m worried about my mom’s lack of income while my stepdad recovers as we are told it will be a long recovery journey for him.
An incredible neighbour of ours, Tina (whose husband, Ray, jumped to action and ran into our house to get me and my mom out), started a GoFundMe for my family and I. Please, if you are able to, share this fundraiser with your network, family, and friends. I know it can be a tough time for many right now. But any contribution, big or small, will truly help my family. We truly appreciate everyone’s help and support through this incredibly difficult time 🥺🙏🏼❤️
As well, as you can imagine, this has also thrown a wrench into our progress for our restaurant, which will likely delay our opening for at least another couple of weeks to a month. Please be patient with us as we navigate through this devastating time for our entire family. Thank you.
Our GoFundMe can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/from-ashes-to-hope-let-us-help-them-start-again.
And I will link it on our profile as well.
If you would like to contribute without GoFundMe taking processing fees, you could e-transfer us at [email protected].
Many thanks to all of you and your support since we’ve opened. This is one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to endure as a family, after our grandfather tragically passed suddenly just 1.5 years ago. And now another tragedy. We are all trying to remind ourselves every single day that God doesn’t give more than we can handle. 😔🙏🏼
