It may be the worst case of adding insult to injury for a Kelowna business owner.
Cinthia Wer lost her home to the McDougall Creek wildfire on Aug. 17, when the blaze ripped through the Bear Creek area of West Kelowna.
Wer and her two children lost their house and all of their belongings in the blaze. According to friend Shadia Doty, Wer is a proud business owner who didn’t want any attention over her loss and just wanted friends to repost a facial special at Bellevue Day Spa.
“I want to help her through this tough time and have the community rally for her,” said Doty.
Then sometime Tuesday night (Aug. 29), someone broke into the spa on Lakeshore Road, stealing computers, expensive skin care equipment and all the skincare products.
According to Cynthia Tejeda who works at the spa, video captured a truck pulling up to the spa, with a beam of some sort in the cab, and reversing into the windows, smashing the glass.
“They smashed everything, there is nail polish all over the floor. It is going to take a long time to clean this up,” explained Tejeda.
While the business has insurance, its owner is dealing with the loss of her home and now it will take even longer to get things back up and running at the spa.
“We are re-booking appointments and asking that people could maybe support us with gift cards,” asked Tejeda.
While originally Wer just wanted people to support her business, that has become close to impossible as the West Kelowna resident struggles to recoup the loss of her home on top of this break-and-enter.
Doty has set up a GoFundMe for Wer to help her get back on her feet. As of Wednesday (Aug. 30), $600 of the $5,000 had been raised.
READ MORE: ‘A large amount of wildfire remains’: West Kelowna blaze remains far from over after rainy night
READ MORE: ‘Immense honour’: Trudeau recognizes Kelowna charity’s wildfire relief efforts
@Jen_zee
jen.zielinski@bpdigital.ca
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