Fundraiser Planned For Sisters Who Saved Children From Burning Home
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The early morning hours of Jan. 8 brought a nightmarish awakening to a Point Breeze family. Their three-story house had burst into flame. Miraculously, all nine residents survived.
Among the survivors are Melanee Reese and sister Joyce, foster parents for three children, with three adopted children of their own. With their home demolished, they are now renting a house.
Joyce says she had been sleeping in a third floor room with an infant when, "I opened the door to my room and smoke just billowed in, and I just, whoo!"
"I turned around and noticed the kids came up behind me," her sister Melanie recalls. "And I said, 'Oh no, you've got to go back downstairs.' So as we were turning around to go down the steps, the second floor exploded."
Joyce stood at the third floor window, with flames and smoke billowing behind her. As gently as she could, she dropped the infant onto the porch roof, and then she summoned all her courage and jumped.
The family survived, including a third sister, hospitalized with cardiac arrest.
Now, a behavioral health service called Wesley Spectrum is lending a hand. Junior board chair Jordan Feucht has organized a Monday night fundraiser at Arsenal Lanes in Lawrenceville.
"It will be $30, and there's free bowling for three hours, and we'll have food and dollar drafts," she explains. "So we just wanted to raise some money for the family."
Joyce Reese expressed her family's thanks.
"I can't express how it means to us to be thought of this way in the community."
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