BIG LAKE, Texas — Watching five third graders run and play across a church yard this weekend, you wouldn't know they recently lost their best friend but they did.
In the early morning hours of June 28, a fire broke out at a home a few blocks from Reagan County Independent School District. Eight-year-old Nikaya Ortiz was trapped inside. Fire fighters worked to get her out a window. She was taken to the hospital, but died from her injuries. The Valenzuela family not only lost their home, but had to bury a child.
Elisa Gomez, Faith Hallmark, Kynlee Goodloe, Brantley McKay and Tinley Graves were all in the same class as Nikaya. They ran track together and were her friends.
Brantley's mother Shelbie McKay was shocked when she heard the news, not only for the Valenzuela family, but for her own child.
“My heart just broke and I just couldn’t help to ask why. Why did this happen? And I worried about Nancy and David and Issahia and Dravon and Alexis and everybody in their family. And it just broke my heart," McKay said. "And I worried about how do we tell the girls. The good thing about this little group of girls is that we’re also friends with their parents and we really did come together and we helped each other as much as the girls helped each other, just trying to figure out how do we talk to our kids. We all had to heal and I think that we did that together."
Once the girls understood what happened, one decided to do a bake sale and lemonade stand. The other girls latched onto the idea.
"So we can help our friend that died. So we can help her family," Kynlee explained.
What started as a simple street-side lemonade stand, became something much larger when the community came out in force. In a single afternoon, the girls had raised $3,838.05 for the Valenzuela family.
The girls' mothers were surprised, but McKay said they should have known it would be a success.
"It meant so much and we were shocked at how well the lemonade stand did, but this community is wonderful and any time anyone is in need, they show up big just like they have now," she said.
Nikaya's classmates were far from the only ones doing something to support the Valenzuela family this week.
Araceli Gallegos and a group of family and friends band together to run a food table at the Santa Rita Star Spangled Celebration in Big Lake Saturday. She said she did not think what they were doing was special, but what neighbors do for one another.
"We're a small town, so we like to get together and help everyone out," Gallegos said. "We know everybody. Everybody knows each other. Everybody helps each other when it comes to need."
Glasscock Chevrolet donated a car and the Lions Club are raffling it off to benefit the family. The vehicle is a 2006 Chevy Cobalt with low mileage and was serviced at the dealership. When Jeff Grissom, owner of Glasscock Chevrolet, heard what happened, he decided he had to do something to help.
"We thought it would be a nice little car and something to do for the community," Grissom said. "It's Big Lake Strong, we call it. We take care of our own. We keep watch on each other's homes. We make sure and we have a food bank. We all donate time and effort to make sure everyone's taken care of."
The Lions Club sold tickets Saturday at the Fourth of July event. Tickets will continue being sold at participating businesses and are priced at $20 each. The drawing will be held at a charity golf tournament on July 30.
Big Lake Bank has a fund set up under David Valenzuela's name.
Christian Faith Center is managing a meal train for members of the Valenzuela family staying with relatives in San Angelo.