Community showing support following fire in Bay City

BAY CITY, Mich. (WNEM) – The Bay City community is coming together to help those whose businesses and homes were lost in the fire on Tuesday, April 4.

The aftermath of Tuesday’s fire destroyed a building near Bay City’s Midland Street business district. The fire required assistance from surrounding agencies, and it caused parts of the building to collapse.

However, rising from the calamity is a communitywide effort to help the victims. Organizers say it’s all for one, one for all.

“We’re trying to help them as well. I know everybody’s trying to help the businesses as well. But there are also people living above there,” Rathskeller Food & Spirits co-owner Earl Bovia said.

Bay City businesses are coming together to help in the wake of Tuesday morning’s fire on North Linn Street near Midland Street. The charred building was home to Mode’s Tavern, JR’s All-Star Haircuts for Men, and several apartments. The fire broke out in the restaurant’s kitchen and took firefighters hours to extinguish.

“There’s a bunch of businesses down here,” Bovia said. “We’re all together. We’re all here for one another. So we wanted to reach out to the community. Bay City is a great community, so we wanted to reach out and we know that everybody’s going to help and we wanted to help in any way we could.”

At least six businesses, including Rathskeller Food & Spirits, will be collecting items and monetary donations to help the affected businesses and the tenants above them. They will be collecting food, shoes, clothing, pet supplies, and other items.

“Anyone that comes down here in the next couple of days, we’re going to give a portion of our profits for that as well,” Bovia said.

Rathskeller plans to donate 20 percent of its sales for the next couple of days to the fire victims.

The Bay Area Chamber of Commerce has posted on its Facebook page a list of other businesses who are also offering their support.

“This is a big community. We try to help out anybody that we can,” Bovia said. “We help out everybody to help one another.”

TV5′s Rayvin Bleu spoke with two of the tenants that lived in the building. They didn’t want to go on camera, but they said that they’re thankful for the support from the community.

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