To donate: Anyone interested in donating furniture to the Cronic family can contact Samantha Paulk on Facebook or email at sammianne89@icloud.com.
The Cronic family had barely been in the county for a month when tragedy struck in the early hours of Aug. 27.
William Cronic woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of his doorbell ringing nonstop. Then he heard the fire alarm.
Thanks to the doorbell, William and his wife Cody evacuated their kids from their home just east of Lexington before the structure went up in flames.
Whether the early morning ringing was an electrical malfunction from the fire, an act of God, or both, the Cronics say they’re thankful they received such a loud warning.
But now the family is left with the task of rebuilding their life from the ashes — a life they had worked so hard to build after relocating from Jefferson County, near Augusta.
“Me and my wife worked real hard to get to where we were at,” William said. “We put a lot of time and effort into that place, and now it just punches you in the gut every time you look at it.”
Before the fire, the Cronics had painted the entire house and installed new floors.
And though rebuilding a new life after the fire will be difficult, the Cronics say they’re amazed at the support they’ve received from their new neighbors and community the past several days.
“For this to be such a small community, it’s very strong when it comes to support and help,” he said. “We’re very thankful for everything everybody’s done for us.”
Part of that support comes from the initiative of another relative newcomer to Oglethorpe County. Samantha Paulk moved to the area from Pennsylvania in 2021.
Paulk’s husband Layne Paulk is the captain of the Lexington Fire Department and is no stranger to hearing the fire radio go off in the middle of the night.
Usually, she said she’ll give her husband a kiss, wish him well and go back to sleep when he responds to a call at night. But for some reason, on Tuesday morning, she had a gut feeling she needed to go with him.
And now she says she understands why.
When she arrived at the scene, one of the first things she saw was William Cronic standing outside without shoes on. He didn’t have time to put them on before evacuating his home.
Then, she saw the children step out of the ambulance with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, and that’s when it hit her that she couldn’t leave the scene without doing everything she could to help this family get back on their feet again.
Paulk posted calls for help on a handful of local Facebook pages, and in a matter of minutes, she said the help came pouring in.
“I looked at (Cody) and I said, ‘All I have to do is make one Facebook post, and this community will come together, and you will have everything that you need to refurnish, to reclothe, to restart your life with your family.’ And that’s exactly what happened,” Paulk said.
For the past week, Paulk has used the Lexington Fire Station as a makeshift donation center for the Cronic family, and on Aug. 30, Paulk and several other volunteers, including Hazel Sanders, who owns Hazel’s Hair Salon in Lexington, held a successful donation drive for the family of eight.
For now, the family has plenty of clothing, shoes, and toiletries, thanks to the outpouring of support, Paulk said.
They have a place to live for now, but the top priority is finding the Cronic family a new home, hopefully in the county, so their children can stay in the Oglethorpe County School System, which they say has been a pillar of support.
“I just want to thank the community for not making a liar out of me, for showing up for complete strangers,” Paulk said. “I am blessed to live in this community surrounded by people who will stop what they are doing to help complete strangers. It makes me emotional.”
Alex Perri is a master’s student in journalism at the University of Georgia. She previously worked at the Transylvania Times in Brevard, North Carolina.