SANFORD – Colorful lights and an array of ornaments decorate the tall Christmas tree in the living room. A silk garland of evergreen and poinsettias brightens up the front window. Two small girls play with stuffed animals – including a big gray rabbit – on the big comfy red sofa.

The Adams family is home.

They moved into a ground floor apartment of a big house in rural Sanford just four days after a Dec. 6 fire destroyed their Waterboro home that Colleen Adams shared with her daughters Marnie, 4, and Evelyn, 6.

They were able to do so because of the generosity of people they knew and people they didn’t know, but who just wanted to help. There were financial donations, material donations – and the gift of time by those who cleaned and painted, arranged and dusted, to make a house a home.

“We’ve been blessed,” said Adams on Saturday from the family’s bright new digs.

The apartment came with many furnishings – but Adams purchased new beds for the girls and the sofa – and she found some old Christmas ornaments in a closet, left behind by a prior occupant. Between what she found and the Christmas decorations donated to the family, the home has a decided holiday atmosphere.

“It is a reminder of how beautiful people are,” she said.

Adams has been an officer with Sanford Police Department for nine years and moved to the position of detective a year ago. She began her career in Exeter, New Hampshire, but after three years in the Granite State, she interviewed and got the job in Sanford. Exeter was good, she said, but Sanford had a faster pace that attracted her.

She was working at her desk on Dec. 6 when a friend, dispatcher Megan Welch, called just after 9:30 a.m. and asked why she was still at the police station that Thursday morning.

Adams didn’t know it until then, but her home was on fire. She’d gotten up as usual earlier that morning, got her daughters ready for daycare, dropped them off and then went to work.

Her police department family quickly stepped in. Detective Eric Small drove her to Waterboro that morning to see what had transpired. On the way, she was trying to imaging the scene, and hoping somehow that the family home wouldn’t be destroyed.

But while the house still stands, inside, some floors have collapsed and most of the family’s belongings are gone or beyond repair.

No one was hurt, but the family’s two dogs, Pooka and Bobo, and the family cat, Bex, perished.

The fire was traced to an electrical malfunction, according to Sgt. Ken Grimes, an investigator with the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office.

Even as firefighters were still working to put the fire out, people were already making plans to help the family.

There were many offers of places to stay until Colleen could find a more permanent location, and bags of toiletries and other necessities appeared to help the family get through the weekend.

Welch, her friend in dispatch, started a Go Fund Me age that ended up raising $21, 320 in eight days.

At the police department, Detective Sgt. Matt Jones handed out assignments – one officer scouted leads on apartments, others taking charge of the zillion other details necessary to accomplish when a family of three suddenly finds themselves without anything.

A day or so after the fire Colleen did find two treasures in the fire-ravaged house – her children’s baby blankets and baby books stored in a cardboard box covered in soot, she had stored in the back of a closet. Why that cardboard box  didn’t burn when other items around it did is uncertain, but those few  precious mementoes  are safe.

Once a new home had been found, police officers, firefighters and city employees rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

“They were painting ceilings and walls, and cleaning,” said Adams. They arranged furniture and sent her out for more and bought and hung curtains. Her former colleagues at Exeter Police Department brought a “huge’ donation of nonperishable food, she said.

“It was like an assembly line,” said Adams. The group started working at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Dec.9 and by the time the sun set late in the afternoon that day, everything was done.

“We slept here Sunday night,” said Colleen from the kitchen table of the family’s new, spacious apartment.

Police agencies and first responders from various agencies around Maine, along with others, pitched in with donations and gift cards.

That red sofa? It was purchased with a gift card from the Maine Warden Service – Adams noting after she made the choice that the sofa matches their officials colors – it is “warden red.”

Adams has set aside some of the donations – she received multiple sets of sheets and other household goods, and some children’s things that she intends to pass on to others in need. She couldn’t, in good conscience, keep it all, she said.

She said people still approach her and ask how they can help. Adams said her family is now doing well, but pointed out that an Acton mother and two her two children lost their home to fire on Saturday. Folks who want to help can contact the Acton Town Hall. As well,  a Go Fund Me page has been set up to help that family and can be found through this link:  https://bit.ly/2EB7aHC.

Adams is overwhelmed and thankful for all of the help she received in various forms.

“There are beautiful people out there, who were willing to do anything to make sure we have a home,” she said. “I keep telling people ‘thank you, thank you,'” and she fears those words are just not enough.

Adams took note of all who have pitched in and has special words for her police family, who immediately came to her aid.

“I didn’t have to grieve alone, I didn’t have to worry alone. I didn’t have to be anxious alone or cry alone,” she said. “By Sunday, my kids has a home, comfy and secure, and I can never repay everyone for that.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.

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