While Tisher Harris goes to work today as a security guard, her two daughters, Tisher Holloway, 16, and Erica Holloway 14, will be in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. No doubt her son, Elijah Holloway, 10, will be supervising.
The family, which also includes Harris' infant grandson Jayden, will be celebrating the holiday in a new home. More importantly the new home is a safe and healthy one.
In September 2008, when the area was ravaged with torrential rains, Harris' home at 43rd Avenue and Pennsylvania Street in Gary flooded. The family worked to rid the basement of more than 18 inches of water, but then something worse happened. The water damage caused mold to grow uncontrollably in the home.
"My 16-year-old has asthma, and her room was so bad, her ceiling was turning blackish from the mold. It just kept getting worse and worse," Harris said. Constant cleaning efforts with bleach didn't help.
Harris contacted Lakeshore Area Regional Recovery of Indiana, the group that has been helping flood victims throughout the region for the last two years.
"We needed to get out of the house, but we had no place to go," said Harris, adding LARRI stepped in and helped the family relocate to its new, safe three-bedroom home.
"My heart dropped," Harris said of her reaction when LARRI representatives told her the news. "It is like winning the lottery, to be blessed and to have it happen to you, it is the best."
The family moved into the new home in October.
"It is a home. There is a difference between having a house and a home. This is a home," she said looking around the small house. "I didn't want a big house. I wanted us to be together and bump into each other. It will help us stay close."
If it wasn't for LARRI, she said, they probably still would be in their old home.
Harris said she's thankful for the group and all its efforts to help her family find a safe place to live.
"Even though we had a lot of memories in that old house, we can build memories in this one," Erica said.
Those memories will start with the two girls making their first Thanksgiving dinner for their mother and a plethora of other family members who plan to help them celebrate
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