Doug Hoar was still awake in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 28, chatting with his wife, when the pair noticed a fire across the road at the family’s apple orchard.
The couple called 911, but the first responders couldn’t save Legend Hills Orchard’s farm market, its cider press and the sorting facilities.
The Legend Hills Orchard farm market is pictured before it was destroyed by a fire in the early morning hours on Sept. 28.
While no one was physically injured, the fire devastated the family-owned orchard’s farm market in the height of apple picking season, which has since come to an unexpected end.
Through the family’s heartbreak, the central Ohio community has come together to show the family an “outpouring of love, prayers, kind words and support,” the owners wrote on social media. The response has proven the Legend Hills family extends beyond its owners, Hoar and his sisters, Debbie Seibel and Susan Hatch.
The announcement the family-owned orchard posted on Facebook at 4:30 a.m. following the early morning fire Sunday garnered more than 5,000 interactions in the first three days, between shares, comments and reactions.
Seibel saud customers, neighbors, farmers, the greater community, other orchards, schools and churches have all stepped up to support their family following the loss of its farm market.
“They have all shown us that this community is just like a family,” she said.
Support from friends and the farming family
Other farmers have offered to loan the family equipment. Customers have dropped off food.
“Sometimes they drive 5 or 10 minutes away, and sometimes they drive an hour to get here to just share their love,” Hatch said.
Another Utica orchard, Branstool Orchards, collected donations following the fire and committed to matching the gift. Seibel said the neighboring orchard donated thousands to support Legend Hills.
“Most folks would consider them our competition but we do not,” Branstool Orchards said in a Facebook post. “The wonderful thing about farmers is that they almost always support each other!”
The Lynd family, of Lynd Fruit Farm, stopped by to offer harvesting help and employment for the Legend Hills employees atop overall support.
“It’s unbelievable,” Hoar said.
Rising from the ashes to rebuild
Two separate GoFundMe fundraisers were started for the family.
One, launched by a nonprofit called The Mason Foundation, seeks to support the orchard as a whole.
Another was created to support Hoar’s daughter, Renae Hoar, who lived in an apartment on the property and lost everything but her clothes on her back and her phone in the fire.
That fundraiser had already reached 50% of its $6,000 goal in the first two days following the fire.
As of the afternoon of Sept. 30, the family was still unsure of the cause of the fire. Seibel said the authorities were investigating and hoped to figure out what ignited the flames in the next several days.
“We’re still assessing the damage, and then we’ll get to work,” she said. “We’ve already started planning for the future.”
When asked how the community can best support the family, the sibling co-owners said it was a hard question as the community has already given the family so much support.
Ultimately, they asked members of the community to keep their family in their thoughts and prayers.
“We are just so appreciative of everyone, from the first responders to all those people that have shown their support in the last few hours,” Hatch said.
Sophia Veneziano is a Columbus Dispatch reporter supported by the Center for HumanKindness at The Columbus Foundation. She may be reached at sveneziano@dispatch.com. The Dispatch retains full editorial independence for all content.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Legend Hills Orchard receives outpouring of support after fire