A little help from her friends

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Borough woman seeks to rebuild life after fire

Members of the Naugatuck Fire Department and Beacon Hose Company No. 1 work at the scene of a structure fire that destroyed a house trailer and severely damaged another in a mobile home park at 129 Lewis Street in Naugatuck on March 3. Rita Paszel had just moved her stuff into the home the day before the fire and lost everything. A benefit dinner will be held April 19 to help Paszel. –RA ARCHIVE
Members of the Naugatuck Fire Department and Beacon Hose Company No. 1 work at the scene of a structure fire that destroyed a house trailer and severely damaged another in a mobile home park at 129 Lewis Street in Naugatuck on March 3. Rita Paszel had just moved her stuff into the home the day before the fire and lost everything. A benefit dinner will be held April 19 to help Paszel. –RA ARCHIVE

NAUGATUCK — Friends and family are coming together to help a Naugatuck resident who lost everything in a fire last month.

Naugatuck native Rita Paszel had just finished moving her belongings into her mobile home on Lewis Street before a fire burned everything on March 3.

“We put her things in on Sunday,” Barbara Pyshna, Rita’s sister, said. “She has this little dog. That’s all she has left, the little dog.”

Pyshna said her sister was not in the home at the time because the landlord had just come by to turn on the heat and it was too cold to spend the night there.

After the heat was turned on a fire started in the Paszel’s mobile home, destroying everything she owned. The fire also spread to another mobile home. Nobody was injured.

Pyshna and Dolly Lengyel, Paszel’s friend, are hosting a benefit ziti dinner to help Paszel recoup some of her losses.

The dinner is scheduled to take place from 4 to 8 p.m. April 19 at the VFW Post 1946, 239 Rubber Ave. Tickets are $10 per person.

“We’re holding it because she’s lost everything. She has nothing,” Pyshna said.

Lengyel, who has known Paszel for two decades, called her a kind and giving person.

“She’s the type of person to give you the shirt off her back,” Lengyel said. “If she went over your house she would help you clean. She would help anybody.”

Lengyel said after the fire the borough gave Pyshna a couple of days at the Naugatuck Motor Lodge, but she is still in need of more help.

 “Something like this is heartbreaking. No one should have to go through that,” Lengyel said.

Pyshna said this has been especially hard on her sister because she has had two knee replacement surgeries.

“She’s not doing well,” Pyshna said.

Pyshna said since the fire Paszel has been able to obtain a bedroom set, a living room set, and a kitchen table, but still does not have many necessary items.

“She doesn’t have towels, sheets, clothes, or pots and pans,” Pyshna said.

The money from the dinner will go to help Peszel purchase items she needs.

Lengyel hopes people will come out to the dinner to help Paszel.

“You work all your life for what you have and then to have it destroyed in a fire. It’s awful,” Lengyel said.