Christmas fire damages Maplewood home

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — A fire tore through a home in Maplewood’s Hilton neighborhood early on Christmas morning, damaging the newly renovated interior and preventing the owner from moving in when she was planning to. Sandi Gedin inherited the house from her father and had just moved her belongings in. No one was in the house at the time of the fire.

“We think it was electrical, but we’re still not sure,” Gedin said in a phone interview with the News-Record on Jan. 6. “I had just left the property. They were putting in windows and finishing the floors.”

She’s going through the process of finding out how much of the damage insurance will cover and investigating what started the fire, but in the meantime her coworkers at Hudson Crossing Surgery Center started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help out. As of Jan. 9, $19,542 of the $40,000 goal has been raised.

“We came to work the next day and said ‘Let’s do something,’” Alex Scott, Gedin’s manager, said in a phone interview with the News-Record on Jan. 3. “She needs to be able to get back on her feet. It hit us all in the heart. For months she didn’t have anything in there and she just moved everything in there and this horrible thing happened. We just felt so bad, especially given the history of the house.”

The house was Gedin’s father’s, and she became the owner when he died two months ago. She grew up in the house and is a graduate of Columbia High School.

“It’s heartbreaking. I was happy with it,” Gedin said. “I grew up in that house and my kids grew up in that house. Thank God for Alex Scott.”

To donate to the fundraiser, go to www.gofundme.com/f/sandi-gedin-house-fire.

  Christmas, FEATURED, Maplewood Fire Department