Community Corner

Patch Flash: Community Saves Christmas for Fire Victims

Chicagoland news to talk about: Rabbis bless occupied foreclosed homes for Hanukkah.

 

Two Mount Prospect families displaced from their homes by a fire Christmas morning were able to salvage their holiday celebrations with the help of quick-responding firefighters and donations from across their suburban Chicago community. Maria Jordan and her two daughters, ages 11 and 7, told police Their home was engulfed in smoke when they woke Christmas morning. The Jordan family's home, including all their Christmas presents, was destroyed by the fire. In spite of a steady increase in demand, the village's human services department set aside an emergency reserve of donated gifts from their 16th annual toy drive, and more than 20 gifts appropriate for the family were delivered Christmas day,

 

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An 18-year-old Rolling Meadows high school senior was found dead in an apparent homicide over the weekend in Mexico, where he was visiting family. Alex Marron and two other men were found dead in the trunk of a burned car in Michoacán, Mexico. An investigation with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City is ongoing, but no suspects have been named.

 

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On the seventh night of Hanukkah Monday, a Jewish celebration of the re-occupation of the Temple in Jerusalem, Chicago Rabbis blessed homes reclaimed from bank seizures by families who were reportedly evicted on unethical or illegal grounds. The home of Sabrina Morey, an unemployed mother of 4, was one of 174,000 sitting vacant in Chicago, according to 2010 Census data, after being evicted by a bank foreclosure. As part of a national reclamation movement aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement, Morey reoccupied her home.

 

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