Theresia LaBree survived the Station fire and gets help with medical and other expenses from the Station Family Fund.

>

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

Theresia LaBree, 37, survived the Station nightclub fire, but suffered burns to her hands and face (she also lost four teeth when the man she was with pulled her out through a window). She spent a month in Rhode Island Hospital, followed by rehabilitation at the Southern New England Rehabilitation Center at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Providence, and years of occupational therapy.

She had a job with health insurance at the time, but during her hospital stay, her employer went out of business. She’s on disability now, with Medicare to help cover her continuing expenses (she still needs one more surgery on her right hand).

Her household is one of many that received financial and other support from the Station Family Fund in the five years since the fire raged through the West Warwick nightclub, killing 100 people, injuring at least 180 and leaving 64 children without one or both parents. For the past two years, the fund has been assisting with paperwork and bureaucracy, as well as medical co-payments and holiday expenses. “They’ve been there,” says LaBree, who lives in Pawtucket with her sons, Landon LaBree, 21, and Luigi Ucci, 15. Both work and Luigi goes to school as well.

Dee Snider, lead singer of Twisted Sister, who will perform at a benefit concert for the Station Family Fund on Monday at 7 p.m. at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, in Providence, was recently on the Howard Stern radio program talking about the show and the fund. According to Todd King, a board member and past president of the fund, Stern was surprised to learn that the fund and the survivors were in need. “I thought those people were taken care of,” King remembers Stern saying.

“No one was taken care of,” King says.

While several class-action lawsuits have been settled in the wake of the Station fire, no judge has signed off on any agreements yet, so no money has gotten into the hands of any fire survivors. Any settlements will be divided among hundreds of people. Even before that, lawyers will take their cut, and some insurance companies may reserve the right to recover their costs. “It’s a long process,” says LaBree, “and right now is day-by-day.” That’s where the fund comes in.

Todd King, a board member and former president of the Station Family Fund, says this is the time of year “we get absolutely shellacked.” They usually get about 25 requests for help a month; this month, there have already been 40. Utility bills are on the rise; survivors’ teenage children are at school and less able to help out. “There’s a lot more need out there. We have to focus on the biggest crises now.”

The Station Family Fund has raised and disbursed more than $3 million in private grant money and donations to fire survivors and their families. It sounds like a lot until you divide it by the number of people affected by the fire and the medical bills they’re faced with, says King, who now lives in North Carolina. Many two-income families went down to one, and some people can only work part-time now.

2006 was a rough year, King says: Only $25,000 came into the fund. Last year, with the help of a matching pledge from the Alan Shawn Feinstein Foundation, they raised $84,000.

The main business of the fund, King says, is making medical co-payments, occasionally paying for specialists, as well as helping people with health insurance premiums. If someone’s insurance runs out, even if they are eligible for new policies, their fire injuries are considered pre-existing conditions.

Shirley Moretti of Narragansett, a retired nurse, has been on the board of the Station Family Fund for about two years. She is the outreach chair for the fund, which means she is on the front lines, dealing with survivors’ applications for financial help, as well as steering them through the paperwork maze of public-assistance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

The fund pays for medical expenses ranging from co-payments for psychiatric counseling to taxi rides to counseling sessions for those unable to drive, Moretti says. And at this time of year, particularly this year, she does a lot of unofficial counseling.

“I’m not a counselor by any means, but — this week, the calls I’m getting. They just need somebody to talk to because it’s the anniversary. The depression and the survivor guilt is overwhelming.”

While programs such as Medicaid and Medicare are a great help, there hasn’t been any direct government assistance to those affected by the Station fire. That’s a source of frustration to some, who note on the Internet and elsewhere that other disasters with far less loss of life, such as California wildfires, inspire federal aid packages.

The Station Family Fund once got a single $1,000 state legislative grant, but that’s it.

“It is what it is,” says Moretti, who points out that the fund was established to help a survivor who was losing her house. “There was nothing at all out there.”

It’s also hard not to notice that, outside of the Monday concert featuring John Rich, Gretchen Wilson, Dierks Bentley, Tesla, Twisted Sister and more, the response from the music industry has been underwhelming.

“We don’t really get a whole lot of the big people, which is what we need,” says Moretti. She’s quick to credit the acts who are playing for free, but adds, “The big names, like the Bruce Springsteens? No.” In separate interviews last week, Snider and Tesla drummer Todd Luccketta, who are organizing the show with King, confirm that while big-name performers are usually willing to help once you can get them one-on-one, making that contact is nearly impossible.

So in the meantime, the Station Family Fund is a lifeline to a lot of people, including LaBree, who raises her sons and recovers. “It didn’t end that day, or a year after,” she says. “It’s still going on in your mind. We all had to adjust to a different kind of living. But the help’s there, and we appreciate it.”

Moretti and LaBree have never met face-to-face, having only spoken over the phone. But for Moretti, the work is gratifying. While the lack of money is a constant frustration, “selfishly, I get tremendous joy from what I do.”

Five years after the fire, LaBree says she’s been to an outdoor concert, but won’t go to an enclosed space with large numbers of people. Even in a restaurant, she keeps her eye on the exits. “It’s just something that’s going to be with us.”

She gets emotional while speaking about going to the fire site on Sunday for a memorial service.

“It’s overwhelming, still. Every time we go there.”

Tickets for the Station Family Fund Relief Concert Monday night at 7 at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center are available at the Center box office and through Ticketmaster: $41, $51 and $61.

rmassimo@projo.com