The fire that gutted the kitchen of Angie Howard’s rental home could have been worse.

The house was still standing. Eventually, Howard, her husband, Mike, and two children will move back in once repairs are done.

But what happens in the meantime, when a person doesn’t have insurance, a place to go or the cash to survive?

The Howards found out. It took a community to help them pull through.

“Everybody helped out so much,” Angie Howard said. “It’s why we live here, why we love living in Lawrence.”

‘Maybe you should come home’

It was a simple mistake. Anyone could have made it.

Minutes before she and her husband left for work at a Federal Express distribution center in Shawnee, Angie Howard fired up some burritos, a quick lunch, in a stove-top pot.

Miles away from their home at 2241 Tenn., work beckoned. It was only about 30 hours a week, but it pulled them through.

The baby-sitter said she planned on cooking more for the kids. So the couple left.

The stove’s burner, turned up high, still flickered underneath the pan.

Howard said she and her husband barely made it out of Lawrence before their phone rang.

Howard recalled her baby-sitter’s words: “Your house is on fire. Maybe you should come home.”

Angie Howard, left, washes dishes in a hotel bathroom on Friday as her husband, Mike, and son, Christopher, 2, play with one of their two dogs. Ever since their home was badly damaged by a fire last month, the Howards have been cooped up in a room at the Lawrence Holidome.

The couple raced back. By the time they arrived, the kitchen of their rental home had burned and smoke poured through the rest of their house.

Her two kids and pets stood on the lawn with the baby-sitter.

“Our baby-sitter was in shock,” Howard said. “Everybody was – that it went up so fast.”

Crying, she went for her kids. That day, Aug. 15, was her son Christopher’s birthday, and they had plans for the weekend.

Cake. Family. Not trying to recover from a fire.

“We planned on actually having cake and ice cream that night. Next thing you know, we don’t even have a house,” Mike Howard said.

Bills pile up

But while Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical crews helped put out the fire and save the rest of the house, other help arrived.

Friends showed up to ask what they could do. The Red Cross was there moments after, giving them a disaster relief card to help with expenses and three nights in the Lawrence Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive.

“That was super cool. That’s how we got our storage unit, paid for all of our food.”

But the Red Cross can’t put people up forever. After a handful of days in the Holidome, the Howards still needed somewhere to go. They thought the home would be repaired sooner, Mike Howard said, or they would have looked for another place.

Family wasn’t an option, either, they said. Angie Howard’s family lives in Topeka, Mike’s in Kansas City. With Anastasia in school, Angie Howard said the family couldn’t leave Lawrence.

The Holidome offered them a discount on their stay, but bills still piled up.

“We were at the end when we couldn’t afford it,” Howard said. “We owed them money.”

At Cordley School, where 8-year-old Anastasia is a student, Suzanne Nicolet heard about the Howards’ financial problems from school principal Kim Bodensteiner.

For Nicolet, a WRAP counselor at the school, helping families in need is part of her job. So she started searching.

“I started networking, trying to find resources for them,” Nicolet said.

Within days, help began pouring in.

100 Good Women donated new kitchen supplies, Nicolet said, and The Shelter Inc., a juvenile assistance center, planned to donate funds as well.

Another donor gave a “sizable donation” anonymously, she said.

“We thank everybody who has helped,” Howard said.

That help bought more days and nights in the hotel and a storage unit for the furniture while the landlord remodeled their home. It bought time – something the Howards needed while their home got fixed.

Still waiting

Angie Howard couldn’t be more thankful, she said.

“They’ve already stepped in so much,” she said of the community support.

Still, there are more bills, she said.

Just Saturday, they dropped off their paychecks at the front desk of the hotel. That’ll buy a few more days, Mike Howard said, but there’s still all the rest.

“We still have a couple more weeks,” Mike Howard said. “It’s just not going far.”

Their furniture has been either destroyed or damaged badly by water and smoke. With no insurance, they’ll have to replace or fix it all.

“That’s what’s putting us in the biggest jam of all,” Angie Howard said.

Mike Howard said their landlord, Gail Hill, has been supportive throughout their struggles. But with more time away from home, the Howards will count every dollar while they wait for their home to get repaired.

“It seems like every day without my house is forever,” Mike Howard said. “You know, that’s our home.”