Family of 9 overwhelmed by community support following fire

The four years Cris Brave lived in a duplex on North Nesmith Avenue was the longest she had ever spent in one place.

A turbulent childhood meant Crisy and her siblings moved frequently from place to place, often calling motel rooms home.

Moving from the house where she had lived from age 13 to 17 after a June 21 fire made it uninhabitable brought back some of that insecurity.

“It’s still hard to process the fact that we’re not going to be going back there,” said Crisy, as she is known to her family. “They said they might try to fix up that house, so that means someone else is going to be living there. I was only there four years, but that’s the longest place I’ve every stayed in my life. Things were so rocky with parents, and my uncle is a lot better.”

Crisy’s uncle is Micah Brave. He was awake when the fire broke out in the duplex’s upstairs unit and hustled his family who lived on the first floor outdoors to await the firefighters’ arrival. No one was injured in the blaze. Brave met with a fire inspector Friday who told him that while the precise cause may never be known, negligence apparently was a factor.

Last week, the Brave family moved into a new rental facility, a three-bedroom house on North Dakota Avenue. The day after they arrived, a team from Furniture Mart USA delivered mattresses and frames for the entire family.

The donation is one of many the family has received. Some gifts were made directly, such as the beds from Furniture Mart, and from individuals. Other donations are coming in through a GoFundMe page that Micheal Stevens, Brave’s sister-in-law, established. She sought to raise $5,000. Early this week, more than $11,000 had been contributed.

“I didn’t think it’d get so much support and help. It’s just crazy,” Brave said. “Especially with everything going on in the world and the economy and gas prices and everything going up.”

Brave is father to two biological children and one adopted son and also parents his ex-wife’s children from an earlier marriage. Four years ago, he took custody of his brother and sister-in-law’s five children. In addition to 17-year-old Cris, a spring graduate of Washington High School, the family includes Autumn, 16; Caiden, 12; Prestyn, 11; Allen, 8; Vernon, 6; and 3-year-old Karen, nicknamed KK.

Stevens received the first GoFundMe distribution last week. On Friday, Brave scheduled a shopping trip to purchase household items such as curtains, pillows and towels, the “basic-needs stuff that we don’t really have,” he said.

He, too, misses their former residence.

“I’ve been there for five years, that’s where I got the kids, it was just home, and I kind of miss it,” Brave said. “I liked my neighbors. Our neighbor kids gathered together in the backyard.”

In 2016, Brave’s nieces and nephews returned to Sioux Falls with their parents. From the beginning, their uncle used his own financial resources to make sure they had shoes, clothes and food. Brave took them in and reluctantly returned them when the parents would return days later. Both parents abused alcohol and drugs, he said. Brave’s brother is unable to take care of his children. Their mother died earlier this year.

In 2017, Child Protection Services took custody of the children. In early 2018, custody transferred to Brave through kinship, and a year later, he received permanent custody.

Two of Brave’s children attend Whittier Middle School, and administrators and teachers stepped up immediately when they heard of the fire.

“They were like the first to reach out,” Brave said. “The principal of Whittier, she actually took some of my kids shopping and bought them clothes; then she gave us a gift from Walmart. A teacher from Terry Redlin (Elementary) took us out to Pizza Ranch, fed us and gave us a gift card for Hy-Vee.”

Brave thinks the story of his children’s difficult upbringing and their mother’s death brought out people’s compassion. Mark Millage of Furniture Mart USA agrees. He sent out texts at work suggesting that the company grant assistance after seeing the story that ran in Pigeon605 on June 27, and he heard from several other people.

“We were just moved by his selflessness and thought there’s got to be something we can do to at least help the situation,” Millage said.

Furniture Mark offers a charitable program called Hope to Dream, funded through a portion of every mattress sale. Since every child deserves a good night’s sleep, Millage said, Hope to Dream makes sure that happens.

Most beds donated through the program offer what is called a bed in a box, which includes the mattress, frame and bedding. Since Crisy is older and Brave also lost his bed, Furniture Mart contributed larger mattresses and frames for them.

Seeing the community support for the Braves also has heartened Millage. Learning the family’s backstory and the sacrifices Brave and his children have made likely stirred up the strong response, he said.

“It has been amazing,” he said.

Brave began crying and wrapped his arms around his chest for comfort as he talked about the response his family has received.

“I’m just surprised there’s so many people that reached out so quickly ‘cause otherwise I would not have known what to do or where to go with so many kids,” he said. “And I’m just thankful, and the kids are happy, that’s all that really matters.”

Crisy rejoices that she still has items such as the many family photographs her late mother collected over the years. It’s a small thing, but she will miss the wardrobe she assembled over recent years. Not a fan of clothing that comes dozens to the rack, she put together pieces from second-hand shops to reflect her style.

Thanks to others’ generosity, she can shop again. And someday, her clothes may hang in a different closet. On Friday, using financial information assembled from various sources to replace papers lost in the fire, Brave applied for a newly constructed home through Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sioux Falls.

“I’m just hoping they accept us, and we’ll be able to start building our own house. So that’s kind of exciting,” Brave said. “This all came up after the fire. A lot of good things have come from it. But the other place, that was home.”

To contribute to the GoFundMe for the Brave family, click here.

Being Brave: Man who lost home to fire rebuilds while caring for 8 kids