BURLINGTON, Wis.— After a devastating fire of her own, a Kenosha County woman turned her trauma into a way to help others recover from house fires.
In April of 2020 — just a few weeks after everything shut down during the Covid-19 Pandemic — Amy Wagner and her family were home when a fire started in the garage and spread fast. Wagner, her husband, son, daughter in law and three-week old grandchild made it out safe.
But they lost everything inside.
“We were watching 27 years of our life disappear before us,” Wagner said. “It was the kindness of our community, our work community, our family that got us through it.”
To pay it forward, she created the Wagner Family Fire Fund. Wagner fundraises and puts together “go-bags” filled with items for anyone who’s just experienced a house fire.
The go-bags contain small items like deodorant, toothbrushes and socks. They also hold bigger items like a $500 gift card, along with vouchers for hotel stays and meals.
Arguably the most important thing in the bags is something Wagner wrote herself. She created a step-by-step guide on what to do and who to call in the hours and days after a fire. It’s something she said she wished she would have had.
“There is something to be said for seeing someone at their lowest, and being able to raise them up,” Wagner said. “That, to me, makes it so worth it. Because we were at our lowest and had people do that for us.”
Within four years of her traumatic house fire, Wagner’s been able to put Wagner Family Fire Fund go-bags in every fire department within Kenosha County. The small town of Randall was the very first to ever get one back in 2021. Firefighter Jason Dalke said to be able to share a resource like this is special.
“To be able to give someone a bag and say, ‘There is a booklet inside of this with an amazing story of what another family went through, and it includes a lot of answers to your questions,’ is valuable. What they’re going through is extremely heavy, but there is help,” said Dalke.