It is widely known that the people you meet your freshman year of college can easily become your closest friends for the next four years, and perhaps beyond.
Sophomores Francesca Nardelli, Caroline Stern, and Niki Russell are no exception. Friends since freshman year, Stern and Russell found out Nardelli’s home in Walpole burned to the ground and sprung into action to help their friend.
The two started a “crowdfunding” movement through a GoFundMe webpage where friends, family, and strangers could donate to Nardelli’s family, who lost nearly everything in the blaze.
“I literally just didn’t even know what to say,” said Nardelli of when she realized her friends made the fundraising page for her. As of Tuesday night, it had raised $11,379. “It’s helped so much just to know there are people out there I don’t even know [donating], it’s nice to see that people are willing to help out.”
Nardelli, 20, is a graphic design major at the New England School of Art and Design. Because of the financial difficulties of paying to live in the city, this year Nardelli chose to commute to Suffolk via MBTA commuter rail from her Walpole home.
After she left for school Friday morning, Nardelli received a call and text from her brother. He told her their house was on fire, and sent a photo of the flames.
Nardelli headed back home, where firefighters had put out a blaze that was in their garage, she said. The rest of her two-story home was damaged by water and smoke. The family, told by firefighters they couldn’t stay there for a few months, Nardelli said, grabbed essentials and went to her aunt’s home in Quincy.
But the next morning, Nardelli’s family awoke to find their home had caught fire again around 6 a.m. Saturday, and this time it was severely damaged.
“I never thought this would ever happen to me,” Nardelli said over the phone Monday. Her professors have allowed her to take a week off from classes — she even lost her textbooks in the blaze.
She and her mother, Donna, think back to the first blaze Friday morning. They stared at the home, recently extinguished from flames, and could hear a crackling and popping sounds. Firefighters had told them the fire was out, she said, but then the second fire broke out Saturday morning.
“The whole house was in flames” the second time, Nardelli said. “The whole thing was just gone.”
As Nardelli looks for a permanent place to stay, her friends have been helping her along the way, offering up their apartments for temporary shelter.
Stern and Russell share a Beacon Hill apartment. When Nardelli visits, the three, who all lived in 150 Tremont dormitory hall last year, like to eat at Fin’s Sushi and Grill and shop around the city.
Nardelli, who thinks she might want to work with Nike someday to design athletic wear, had been saving money in a plan to get an apartment with Stern next year. But now, she’s not sure if that is in the realm of possibility.
For now, she said she is “just trying to figure out what do.”
Anyone who would like to donate to Nardelli’s GoFundMe page can do so here.
