Little Burgundy community mourns for well-known family after fatal highway accident - Fitz needs our help! Please help us raise money to save his home and support watever family he has left! Since the terrible accident where Fitz lost his, Mother, Daughter and granddaughter he has been struggling. Not only is trying to recover from serious burns to his hands (from trying to save his family from a burning car). He is a man of humbe means; honest and dedicated, having given so much to our community, now struggling to keep his home - it's time to give a little back. Please help us raise money so Fitz can get back on his feet!! Every penny counts http://www.montrealgazette.com/Little+Burgundy+community+mourns+well+known+family+after+fatal+highway+accident/7157390/story.html Gazette Artcle: Little Burgundy community mourns for well-known family after fatal highway accident By Katherine Wilton, THE GAZETTE August 29, 2012 CORNWALL, ONT. - Fitz Reid came home to Little Burgundy on Friday to pick up his elderly mother before heading off to Toronto to celebrate his grandchild’s birthday. Reid, a humble painter and carpenter, has a legion of admirers in Little Burgundy where he had been a good citizen, an active volunteer and a positive role model to many young black men for more than 20 years. Everyone in Burgundy knows Fitz and his close-knit family and many were saddened a few years ago when they moved to Châteauguay to build a new life for themselves. A devoted family man, Reid packed his family into his van on Friday and drove to Toronto to visit his daughter Natasha and her family. With him on the trip were his wife, his beloved mother Sheila McGlashen, 78, his son Abner, his daughter Elissa, 22, and his two-month-old granddaughter, Moriah. After a short stay in Toronto, the family headed home Sunday night. They were travelling eastbound on Highway 401, just after 1 a.m. Monday morning, when the had a violent collision with a tractor-trailer that sent both vehicles into a ditch about 60 kilometres west of Cornwall, Ont. Ontario Provincial Police have not released the cause of the accident, but the fiery crash claimed the lives of three members of Fitz Reid’s family: his mother, his daughter Elissa and her 2-month-old daughter. Fitz Reid, his wife, and son Abner survived the crash. Two members of the family remained in hospital in Ottawa on Tuesday, the OPP said. The driver of the tractor-trailer, Sergey Lucin, 44, of Toronto, suffered only minor injuries. People who know the Reid family began hearing the horrific news via text messages and phone calls Monday morning. The initial shock and disbelief has given way to grief as family and friends come to grips with the terrible tragedy that has torn the highly regarded family apart. “The community is in mourning,” said Ronald Mungal, a community worker in Burgundy who has known the family for years. “It has touched everyone. People who have moved from the neighbourhood to Toronto and Ottawa have been calling us and sending us Facebook messages.” Mungal described Elissa Reid as a gentle soul and said his heart goes out to Fitz Reid’s oldest son Tony, a Montreal deejay, who was not on the family trip. “Tony is the glue in the family,” he said. “Their lives have changed forever.” Fitz Reid was always concerned about what was going on in Little Burgundy and always kept his family away from trouble, Mungal said. “He would come and talk about how he could help the young people when he didn’t like what he was seeing,” said Mungal, who is the coordinator of the Burgundy Urban Mediation Project, which mentors youth in the neighbourhood. A neighbour of Fitz’s mother, Sheila McGlashen, fought back tears Tuesday as she remembered the 78-year-old woman and the touching relationship she had with Fitz Reid, her only child. “He came to visit her almost every day,” the neighbour said. “They loved each other. You could count on her for anything. She loved to bake and to cook.” Little Burgundy resident Rosemary Segee remembered Elissa Reid as quiet and shy young girl who sometimes stopped by the Youth in Motion community centre with her friends before she moved to Châteauguay. “This is big news in the community and people are taking it really badly,” Segee said. She said everyone’s thoughts are going out to Fitz Reid and the rest of his family. “I saw Fitz on Friday,” she recalled. “He is always laughing and is a really nice man.” Kelly Thompson, a former neighbour of the family in Little Burgundy, said the community is going to pull together and do what it can to help Fitz Reid and his family recover from their terrible ordeal. “It is so, so awful,” Thompson said. “I am getting goosebumps just thinking about it. He is very family oriented and a civic-minded man. I have admired him for a long time.” Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Little+Burgundy+community+mourns+well+known+family+after+fatal+highway+accident/7157390/story.html#ixzz27AQLmMXz