Kel­ly Ann Lemessy

Sev­en­ty-four-year-old An­tho­ny All­sop of Ma­yaro is ap­peal­ing for help af­ter his home of more than two decades was de­stroyed on Sun­day morn­ing when strong winds top­pled two large trees on­to the struc­ture.

All­sop, who has lived on the prop­er­ty for over 20 years, was not at home at the time. He said he was on his way from Ma­yaro Junc­tion when the dis­as­ter struck. “By the grace of God I wasn’t in­side. If I was, I don’t know what would have hap­pened,” he said.

His niece, Make­ba Leza­ma-Bap­tiste, said her un­cle is now dis­placed and in ur­gent need of as­sis­tance. “On Sun­day morn­ing, as you see, a tree from be­hind fell on the house. Two trees ac­tu­al­ly fell on the house. He has, I don’t want to say nowhere to live, but he is dis­placed. We are hop­ing that some­body out there could as­sist us by lend­ing a help­ing hand. My un­cle would great­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it, and so would I. If any­body could as­sist us with what­ev­er, whether it be labour, ma­te­ri­als, we would re­al­ly, re­al­ly be grate­ful.”

Leza­ma-Bap­tiste said some im­me­di­ate sup­port came on the same day from the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion’s dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness unit. “They dropped off a mat­tress and the tar­pau­lin you’re see­ing be­hind. That was ba­si­cal­ly the as­sis­tance we had on that day,” she ex­plained. The Fire Ser­vice al­so re­spond­ed, cut­ting down the tree and help­ing to re­move de­bris from the dam­aged house.

She added that while the fam­i­ly is grate­ful for the help al­ready giv­en, much more is need­ed. “He’s been liv­ing here for 20 years. Right now he doesn’t have a prop­er place to rest his head. We just want to re­build some­thing small for him to be com­fort­able. Any help, whether it’s fur­ni­ture, build­ing ma­te­ri­als or even peo­ple will­ing to lend their time, would mean a lot to us.”

Those will­ing to as­sist can con­tact Leza­ma-Bap­tiste at 726-9993.