Two nights before Christmas, the lives of the Crawford family — Will, Marilyn and Matthew — were turned upside down.
The three were walking back from Buca di Beppo, having just enjoyed a dinner with extended family, when they heard sirens coming from their neighborhood.
Chris Voisey was at a gathering with his friends a few blocks away when he heard fire engines. The son of a police officer, Voisey said he could tell that there were multiple companies responding, and hopped on his bike to check out the scene. There, he saw the Crawfords approach.
“I watched their faces go from ‘What’s going on?’ to ‘That’s our house!’” he said. “It was jaw-dropping — it hit my heart hard,” he said.
The hardest moment for him, though, was hearing 6-year-old Matthew. “He made a comment: ‘What about Christmas?’…I had tears, I’ll be honest,” Voisey said.
The next day, Voisey met Will Crawford in front of his now-ruined house. He reintroduced himself and asked what the family’s plans were for the holidays.
“I could just tell, it was ‘I don’t know, I’ve got to deal with this first.’ I just interjected and said ‘Let me and the community figure out Christmas,” Voisey said.
The fire destroyed any semblance of a normal Christmas for the Crawford family — including Will and Marilyn’s plan to put money together for a new bike for Matthew by his birthday in January. So, Redondo Beach stepped in.
The Redondo Beach Firefighter’s Association relief fund came through first, immediately paying for a three-night stay at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Then, Voisey and the community went to work through local social hubs on Facebook and NextDoor, coordinating ways to gather needed supplies: clothes, food, gift cards and, of course, presents.
“That second day [in the hotel] was Christmas Eve, and we’d been out at the house all day, trying to salvage stuff, see what we had left, and we came home to a note under the door, saying Santa had visited the room down the hall,” Crawford said.
Voisey, playing Santa’s helper, left that note behind, along with a key to room 5067. There, a brand new Christmas tree had been set up, along with stacks of presents, a new bike, and a special surprise: Firefighters had plucked an ornament from the Crawford home, one that Matthew had made in kindergarten that was, Voisey said, “in perfect condition.”
“We took it, cleaned it up, and put it front and center on the tree,” Voisey said. On a nearby table were food, drinks and gift cards, all donated to help them breathe a bit easier.
It made a huge difference. In their room, Matthew had draped blankets over a chair alongside cookies and milk to simulate a tree. “He was so disappointed that there was nothing there [Christmas morning] — he was almost in tears.”
That changed as soon as the family made their way to room 5067.
“It was amazing what they had set up there,” Crawford said. “We were speechless.” Matthew, he said, recovered fairly quickly at the sight of the stacks of presents.
Life is slowly returning to some semblance of normal, now — the Crawford family’s insurance company stepped in to pay for the same hotel room, for continuity’s sake, while the family figures out long-term temporary housing. The estimate for returning to their old home, Crawford said, will take anywhere from eight months to a year.
The cause has still yet to be determined, though there’s speculation that a bare lightbulb or old wiring in the house, built in 1941, may have started the blaze.
“It’s amazing how quickly your life can change, and go from a comfortable home to total devastation within a few hours,” Crawford said, glad at least that the fire had started while the family was away. Material goods were all that was lost.
Though they lost their home, the Crawfords found themselves introduced to a host of people who stopped at nothing to help, with special thanks to Voisey, fire division chief Isaac Yang and Redondo Mayor Steve Aspel, Crawford said.
“It made us thankful to be living where we are. It reinforced the lesson that where you live isn’t about the house or location, but about the people you share that place with.
“We’re blessed that so many people were so willing to put their own needs aside and make sure we, and especially Matthew, had a memorable Christmas.”
