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Neighbor Network Helping San Bruno Explosion Victims

SAN BRUNO (KCBS) - A month after more than 30 homes were burned to the ground in the deadly San Bruno gas explosion and fire, there are still families living in nearby hotels. For others, a tightly-knit support network has been there to offer strength and sanity during a chaotic time.

Dinnertime at Kathy and John Fitzpatrick's modest San Bruno home has become a larger affair over the past month. Every night since the fire someone in the community has brought over dinner to feed not just the Fitzpatrick's, but also the newly homeless Gene and Kris O'Neil and their twin daughters, whose home was the last to burn on Glenview Drive.

KCBS Holly Quan Reporting:

"If I need meals for the next four weeks I can get them," said Kathy Fitzpatrick. "I can call up my friends and they will get them."

Kathy opened up her 1,200 square foot home to the O'Neil's, running interference in the early days.

"Sometimes you don't have the energy to answer the door and I could be their buffer," said Fitzpatrick. "It was difficult for them to even talk to people because they were emotional, and at the end of they day they were exhausted."

They are part of an eight family network that calls itself the "Sunday Supper Club." For 20 years, they've pot-lucked once a month, watched their kids grow up together, even camped together each year. It was that closeness that would never let the O'Neils take shelter in a hotel.

"I have a house, how could I not welcome them," said Fitzpatrick.

It began the night of the fire when the O'Neil's 22-year-old twin daughters were being treated for second and third degree burns, the supper club came to hospital for support.

"All of those people were there, and then we get to Kathy's house and there is the rest of the Sunday Supper Club," said Kris O'Neil. "They had been getting food and clothes. We called it the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants because whatever I put on fit me. It was just amazing."

San Bruno's mayor calls the town old-fashioned in the way everyone knows their neighbor. The day after the fire Kris and her daughters had no shoes having escaped with literally just the clothes on their backs. Kathy took care of that.

"I was able to run across the street to a neighbor and say, 'what size foot do you have?' and she pulled out all of her shoes and it worked out well," said Fitzpatrick. "There's just this whole sense of being there for each other."

In an age when few of us know who's living next door, Kathy says its never too late to reach out. Its something she learned from her mother.

"My father died when I was one, and she taught us years ago that people want to give," said Fitzpatrick. "The hardest thing to do is to accept, but once you can accept help your life will open up and be enriched."

Related Story:
Family Copes With Total Loss In San Bruno

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