WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP — A Fairborn teacher lost nearly everything after a fire broke out in his apartment complex on Thursday.
Firefighters were dispatched to the 1000 block of Cambridge Station Road around 5:30 a.m., according to a spokesperson for the township.
Now the community is helping Chad Guess get ready for the school year after.
Around this time last year, Guess packed up a U-Haul and was on his way to Fairborn for his first year teaching at Fairborn Intermediate School.
but his first day of school prep looks a lot different for him this year as he has to completely start from scratch after the fire that left him without most of his school supplies.
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“So all like 15 to 20 years of music resource books, all of the shows I did, everything, the lesson plans I worked hard on are all gone,” Guess said.
Guess said he rarely did any of his lesson planning in the classroom.
“A lot of teachers, they work in their classrooms and they have the curriculums in here, this that and the other, I literally have everything at home,” he said.
He watched it all burn on Thursday morning.
Guess said he has heard from a lot of people asking how they can help.
“Well thoughts and prayers, secondly, to be straight honest with you financial support,” Guess said.
Betsy Wyatt, the principal at Fairborn Intermediate, immediately jumped in to help when she found out what happened.
“I have shared his Venmo with my staff but we are also collecting donations here at school. Either money or gift cards,” Wyatt said. “We’re of course going to replace anything school-related that’s just going to take time to make that up.”
She said what is unfortunate is some things just can’t be replaced.
“He’s been teaching well over 20 years and when you teach that long, you have like a treasure chest of stuff,” she said. “He’s going through a lot.”
Guess said he’s going to use this experience as a teaching moment to show his students to appreciate the things they have and that material items can be replaced but people can’t be.
“This is where my heart is at. I wanna give these kids the best,” he said.
To donate to the GoFundMe page created for Guess, you can click here.
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