Family burned out of home gets check from guardians association

The gloomy Saturday turned a little brighter for Desiree Darrell when the Nassau County Guardians Association showed up at her door with a check for $1,100.

The guardians association, a fraternal organization of the Nassau County Police Department, presented her family with the check to help them rebuild their Roosevelt house that was largely destroyed by an electrical fire Oct. 15.

"It was just so devastating. I couldn’t even walk," Darrell recalled Saturday of the fire in the house where she had lived for 51 years. "I collapsed in my girlfriend’s arms when I saw that."

The family has been living in a temporary home in Roosevelt.

"It’s like you never feel at home," said Darrell, 55. "Any little thing you get back, whether it be a ring, a picture, a photograph, you just cherish so much because you are trying to get your life [back]. Everything’s in that house, everything you know. So it’s very disheartening."

The association gave Darrell the check after one of its members heard about the family’s displacement.

The family, after all, needed "a little cheering" this holiday season, said Ieda McCullough, the association’s president.

"We fundraise throughout the year," McCullough said. "We try to enhance the African American community in some kind of way. We’d like to give back."

Darrell said she’s grateful for the support from the association’s members.

"They look out for somebody in the community," she said. "I know a lot of them are part of the police force. It makes me feel great. There’s so much love out here, you know, especially this time of the year."