The Canterbury Way garage “fire sale” for the burned out Rodriguez family drew a surprising number of people who donated their goods and cash bringing a total of $1,268.50 to help with the family’s $270,000 fire loss.

Kathryn Martinez – whose husband Bob manned a garden hose – was the force behind organizing the fund raiser and was ecstatic with the results.

“It was just phenomenal,” she said of the public response from her block and from throughout the community.

The help of other neighbors on their street made it all become a reality, she added.

Martinez noted that a fire truck drove up to the sale and firemen donated $100 of their own money adding that the Fire Chief’s Foundation would match the amount they gave to the family.

Among the donations to the sale were clothes, furniture, a treadmill, a basketball backstop and jewelry. Items that were left over and couldn’t be used or sold were taken to the Salvation Army, she said.

A Channel 31 TV crew covered the event and at the end of the day the Rodriguez family presented Kathryn (Kat) Martinez with a bouquet of long stem red roses. In return she presented the couple with a framed color photograph of the two men standing hugging after fighting the blaze side-by-side with garden hoses.