Packing up in Florida and moving to Butler County in fall 2022, the Martinez family was looking toward a bright future.

Just a few months later, their Zelienople townhouse caught fire, and they lost nearly everything they owned.

The family has made a new home in Cranberry Township with “overwhelming” support from its new community.

Last week, a few of their supportive new neighbors met the family at their home to donate and install a new furnace as part of Lennox’s “Feel the Love” program — a national initiative to support families experiencing hardship. The family was nominated for the program by Tina’s aunt after being told their new home’s furnace needed to be replaced at a cost of $4,800.

It was an unexpected bright spot in what has been a very difficult year.

With only their pajamas, Brandon, Tina, their children — Mila, 8, Bryce, 5, and Remi, 2 — and their two dogs escaped the Jan. 19 townhouse fire unscathed.

“Thank God everyone was safe, and there were no injuries or anything like that,” Tina told Eagle reporter Austin Uram last week. “It’s been a crazy year. Honestly, at the end of the day, it could have been totally different after the fire, and we’re just thankful that it wasn’t.”

The couple said the family has received incredible support from the community in the months following the life-changing blaze.

“It is overwhelming,” Brandon said. “We’re just grateful for it. There’s a lot of people helping and pouring out love.”

Mila and Bryce’s schools not only provided emotional support for the children, but helped facilitate bags and bags of donations for the family.

“There’s just been a ton of help,” Brandon said. “I mean, we had probably the whole basement covered with bags of clothes and things. We’ve really, throughout the entire process, been super blessed by this community.”

In spite of everything, the couple agreed they were thankful to have made a home in such a supportive community.

“It just makes us that much more grateful to be in this area where people are just so willing and bent over backward to make sure we had anything and everything we need,” Tina said.

As we have said many times before in this space, this is what we do in Butler County: We lend a hand to those who need one.

–JGG