They lost their house during a fire sparked by a fatal tanker truck accident.
House Fire in Frederick, March 4th, 2023 (Photo from Frederick County Division of Fire & Rescue Services)
Frederick, Md (KM) Three Frederick County residents have set up a Go Fund Me Site to help the Hernandez family, whose house on Apple Avenue in Frederick was destroyed by fire following a tanker truck crash on Route 15 on Saturday, March 4th, 2023.
Chris Martin of Point of Rocks is one of the three who founded the site. “We always are kind of a half-glass full kind of mentality. So we figured why wouldn’t we do something like that . We would hope that somebody would want to do something for us if our house got caught on fire due to a truck fire,” he said.
The other who helped set up the site are Brandon Chapman and De’von Wellesley.;
The driver of the tanker truck involved in the crash, Ronald Leroy Heiston, 58, of Smithburg, Maryland, died at the scene. . The fire that resulted from the wreck damaged six homes and five vehicles. Fire officials say the Hernandez home was uninhabitable.
Martin says so far there’s been a lot of positive response to the Go Fund Me site. “We just kind of set it {the goal} at $20,000 and we hit the goal within a day. So we bumped it up to $25,000 and we hit within a few hours of bumping it up,”: he says.
As of Friday night, the Go Fund Me Site has collected $31,144. Martin says donations are still being accepted. “They can go to Go Fund Me and search the Hernandez family. They can put how much they want to donate, and that ‘s it. . If they want to attach a note, they can do that too,” he says.
And any amount will be accepted. “We’re not looking for 100 people to donate $100,000. We’re looking for 100,000 people to donate $10. The community goal, helping out your neighbors,” says Martin. .
Martin says he’s confident the community will come forward and help. “Frederick is an amazing little town. Some people would say big, but it’s a small town. Everybody knows one another. So we’re just trying to do whatever we can to try and keep everyone strong,”: he says.
By Kevin McManus