By Matt Chiappardi, The Packet Group
CRANBURY — For the better part of the next year, the main thing Cherique and Dex Timbang moved to Hightstown for is gone.
The Timbangs moved from a Princeton townhouse to Orchard Avenue in Hightstown so their two young children could have a house and a yard. But in 20 minutes on Jan. 4, a fire ravaged that house and put on hold the life they’d planned with their children.
Now the Timbangs are living in a Cranbury hotel, waiting for their home to be rebuilt.
”The accommodations are nice, but it’s still not home,” said Ms. Timbang, 35, a nurse at University Medical Center in Princeton. “It’s always in the back of your mind that you could be leaving this place in two or three days so it’s hard to settle in.”
Ms. Timbang said the couple’s insurance company has told them it will be at least nine months until their house can be rebuilt, and during that time they’re hoping to move out of their temporary hotel home and into an apartment or townhouse.
Meanwhile, she and her husband, who works at Lockheed Martin in Newtown, Pa., are overwhelmed by the support they’ve received from neighbors, co-workers and strangers who’ve pitched in to help the family get back on its feet.
”They are angels,” Ms. Timbang said. “How do we even start thanking the town that loved us so much?”
In order to show her gratitude, Ms. Timbang is considering doing something for the community that helped her when she needed it most.
”I’m going to put in an application to be an EMS volunteer for Hightstown,” Ms. Timbang said. “I have a background in emergency nursing, and this will be a way to help other people in need in the little ways I know how.”
The afternoon of Jan. 4, the Timbangs’ home in the 100 block of Orchard Avenue caught fire in the kitchen. The fire was caused by faulty electrical wiring in the wall.
”At 2 o’clock, I got a phone call from my husband, screaming, crying and trembling, telling me the house was on fire,” she said.
She immediately left work at UMC and drove to see what was left of her home.
”I was in shock,” she said. “There were six firetrucks in front of my house. It’s surreal because I left the house, and everything was perfect. I came home, and everything I owned was gone.”
While there was no structural damage to the home, both the first and second floors sustained substantial heat and smoke damage making the house uninhabitable, according to borough Fire Chief Larry Van Kirk.
Fortunately, no one was home at the time of the fire. Unfortunately, nearly everything the Timbangs owned was lost.
”It’s a numbing feeling,” Ms. Timbang said. “Everything we owned, everything that was dear to us, just went up in smoke.”
”And it’s not so much the property,” she added. “There’s sentimental things that can’t be replaced; wedding mementos, handprints of the kids, the lock of hair from my daughter’s first haircut. It’s hard to see all of that just go up in smoke.”
Those things can’t be replaced. But an entire community has come together to help the family return to some normalcy.
A group of the Timbangs’ neighbors began circulating a letter asking people to donate whatever they could to help the family get back on its feet. That effort yielded a great response from the community, raising about $1,000 from 25 different residents, Lynn Wallace, one of the people organizing the relief effort, said last week.
In addition, the Parent Teacher Association from the Ethel McKnight Elementary School in East Windsor, where the Timbangs’ 5-year-old daughter, Caihla, goes to school, donated a number of gift cards, articles of clothing and some cash. Donations also came in from the First Presbyterian Church of Plainsboro, Princeton Baptist Church and Peddie School, the borough’s private boarding school.
The Peddie School, where Ms. Timbang works part time in the health center, also will be providing the family with home-cooked meals over the three weeks or so, she said.
”That was jaw-dropping and amazing,” Ms. Timbang said. “I just asked them for a platter of food or something, and here they are cooking meals for us They’re even delivering it. It’s unbelievable.”
And from the other sources, scores of donations came in, some of them from people the Timbangs have never met.
”I don’t know how to thank them. I just want to give everyone a hug,” Ms. Timbang said. “People donated things without even knowing our names.”
She added, “I’m not the kind of person who would say I need this or that. I don’t want to burden people. But of course, we need everything.”
For the moment, the Timbangs are sifting through the ashes of their destroyed home trying to salvage whatever they can and looking for a living space that’s close by so they don’t have to remove their daughter from the local school district.
And as the moments tick on, Ms. Timbang said each one is getting a little brighter, thanks to the support she’s received from her friends and neighbors.
”It gets lighter and lighter each day because of this amazing town,” she said. ‘I just can’t believe it, especially when money is tight for everyone. We’re totally grateful.”
Anyone wishing to donate cash or gift cards to help the family is asked to contact Cathy Simmons at Old Hights Print Shop at 177 Mercer St., Hightstown, or by calling her at 443-4700.

