Students from Western University started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for an 89-year-old woman whose roof was damaged during last weekend's FoCo party on Broughdale Avenue.
Bess Srahulek is known by Western University students as the Broughdale Grandma. She has lived on Brooughdale Avenue since the 1960s and hasn't had a problem living near the university until students damaged her property during the annual fake homecoming street party.
Before the street party began, a police officer advised her and her cat to stay in a hotel for the weekend to get away from the partying. The police told her that three students had climbed onto the roof from the low eavesdrop and jumped off during the weekend party. She came back home to a large crack in her ceiling and a smashed window.
"I saw that there was glass on the ground and that one of the windows was had been broken. So, that's what I saw first, and there was an empty bottle of vodka just below where the glass was," she said. "I had a friend of mine write a letter to the president [of Western University] and [he] came down and the student council president came down and they were looking at the roof," she said. "And then I did see that there was a brand new crack there," she explained.
(photo courtesy of GoFundMe)
The roof would cost her $6000 to repair. Srahulek said that the damage to her house made her feel violated. The GoFundMe was created with a goal of $1000 to repair the damage to the roof. As of Saturday, the fundraiser has raised over $2000. Srahulek was surprised by the amount of money that students were able to raise.
"I think it will cover the amount that is necessary to pay for," she said. "It's unbelievable because when I was talking to [the GoFundMe makers] I thought [they] had said that they had stopped it because they wanted a bigger job of changing the flat roof which would have been quite costly. I'm very surprised, amazed really that people had done that, God bless them," she said.
Srahulek said that the move from her home to a hotel was also difficult for her cat.
"It was very hard on him, luckily he stayed in the carrier. So then I thought we have to get him back home because he wasn't eating properly. So I managed to get him home and then he settled down," she said.
When she returned home, she also noticed students cleaning the street.
"The good news is that when I was home for a while I did see that there were some young people out front that were trying to pick up some of the mess and so I went out and talked to them and called them good samaritans," she said. "As far as I understand, this lovely threesome that is behind this Gofundme, I've been in contact with them and they're lovely, lovely students," she said.
Fake homecoming was created by Western students as a way to protest the moving of the homecoming date from late September to early October.
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with file from Allanah Wills