Milo community to help family rebuild after March house blaze

MILO – The older sons among Gary Metilly’s 11 children are well-known around town for rising at 2 a.m. on Tuesdays to bake wheat, white and oatmeal breads and bicycle the fresh products to customers to earn a little extra money.

Such sacrifice and industriousness is probably among the reasons why at least 15 residents will gather on Metilly family property Sunday to help them build a new house to replace one destroyed in a fire in March, a family friend said Friday.

“They are just particularly nice children and that makes it easier to help them because they are very appreciative,” said Ben Kittredge, a town resident who has known the family for about a year.

A five-member construction crew of fellow Messianic Jews is driving from Georgia to help Metilly, his wife, Nancy, and their friends build a new house at 33 Deer Run Drive, he said.

The March 14 fire took all of their belongings.

“It’s awesome,” Metilly said Friday of the house raising. “I am so excited. I am excited to see God’s hand at work. This is the answer to so many of our prayers.”

The house-raising, which will start at 7 a.m. and continue all week, perpetuates an amazing burst of generosity that has helped the Metillys, who had no insurance, endure the tragedy of the fire, he said.

The donations include a $1,300 Wal-Mart gift certificate, a Three Rivers Kiwanis Club gift of $1,000, and so much in clothes and other goods that town officials who were volunteering to help the family store the stuff eventually stopped accepting donations.

“The outpouring within the local community has been phenomenal,” Metilly said. “We have had lots of inquiries about when we are building so people can participate.”

The new home the family is building will be about 2,000 square feet per level, said Metilly, an aspiring electrician. The foundation is in, the first-floor joists are mostly down, some of the subfloor is down, and the concrete porch floor is poured.

He hopes to finish the first floor, start the second floor and start on the roof, if enough donations come in to buy building materials, he said.

“We are just trying to get a shell up,” he said. “We are trying to get in before the baby’s born, if possible.”

Nancy Metilly is pregnant and due within a few weeks, he said. Their children are Isaiah, 19, Elizabeth, 17, Jonathan, 16, Andrew, 13, Josiah, 12, Hannah, 10, Hadassah, 7, Miriam, 5, Ribqah, 3, Shamyah, 2, and 10-month-old Ezekiel.

The volunteer efforts to help the Metillys say as much about Milo as it does about the Metillys, said Ben Kittredge, a town resident who has known the family for about a year.

“In small towns, we are more aware of people’s needs and more interested in helping people in need as much as we can,” Kittredge said Friday.

“And they are a particularly nice family,” he added, “very friendly, courteous and polite.”

Anyone interested in donating to the rebuilding effort can mail to The Metilly Fire Fund, c/o Maine Savings Bank, P.O. Box 447, Milo 04463. Anyone who wants to help rebuild the house or donate materials can call Metilly at 943-3402 or be at 33 Deer Run Drive starting Sunday. Anyone with tools they know how to use is invited to bring them.