BURIEN, Wash. — Inside Burien's Sunnydale Elementary School building, a space that served as a resource for the city's most vulnerable now sits empty.
On the night of April 18, a fire destroyed the clothing bank housed inside the old elementary school.
“My first immediate thought was, I really hope we didn’t forget and left something turned on,” says outreach director Paul Ott. “Once I got here and saw what was going on, that thought quickly passed.”
No injuries were reported, and the King County Fire Investigation Unit is still investigating the cause.
The clothing bank was managed by Transform, a faith-based organization that helps people in need by providing meals, clothes, and other necessary resources.
“There’s a lot of people out there that are struggling, whether it’s homeless people or immigrant families, or people that just aren’t able to make ends meet,” Ott says. "We’re kind of an organization that stands in the gap. As one of our people here says all the time, we just do what we can do, and I've just kind of adopted that."
Now, workers are scrambling to get things back up and running as soon as possible to continue Transform's mission.
Currently, Transform is back in the building and will host its meal service and food bank during its normal hours. The group is also still taking donations, but in a very limited capacity at the moment.
Ott says since news of the fire spread, community members have reached out to offer what they can. He says that support, along with his faith, keeps him encouraged and lets him know he's on the right path.
"It kinda confirms the hope that I have!” he says. "It stinks that this happened, but we're coming back from it, and I believe we'll come back even bigger and better than we were before."