SCRANTON, Pa. — Firefighters worked to put out a fire Monday afternoon along Linden Street.
Despite their efforts, the flames tore through the house and damaged the one next door.
The University of Scranton owns both houses, but the Friends of the Poor uses them for its Clothes Line for Men.
President and CEO Meghan Loftus got a call about the fire and said she was overwhelmed.
"The first time I saw the building, it was already a complete loss. Thinking about all of the supplies we had in there and almost ten years of work, maybe more than that, to build the program into what it is today, and all of it was just gone," said Loftus.
The Scranton fire chief says a faulty appliance caused the fire. Fire inspectors ruled it an accident.
Loftus says the house that was destroyed was the newest expansion to the Clothes Line For Men program. Inside were items requested the most by men on the job.
"Steel toe boots, jeans, sneakers, long sleeve shirts, things for people to work outside and manual labor positions," said Loftus.
The damage to the house with the original space only suffered minor damage to the outside, but Loftus worries what is inside may be a lost cause.
"I'm thinking that all of the clothing in there might be too heavily smoke-damaged to continue distributing, even if we were to try and wash and clean it, so we're going to have to start from scratch. Step one is to find a space, even a temporary space, that we could operate out of," said Loftus.
Loftus says they will welcome donations of clothes as soon as they find a new place to put everything but could use monetary donations to fill requests for emergency cases.
In the meantime, they are going to do their best to continue helping the community.
If you'd like to help, you can call the Friends of the Poor main office at 570-340-6086 or visit their website to donate.
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