Albright College SAAC Raising Money for Victims of House Fire that Killed Varsity Swimmer

Earlier this week, a varsity swimmer at Albright College, Matthew Rein, was killed in a house fire.

Other members of that house were also athletes at Albright, and the Albright Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) have reached out to the Albright community to help contribute to the inevitable medical bills as they recover.

See the letter written by Kelsea Guckin below. To read more about this tragedy, click here.

Good Afternoon All,

I want to start by thanking you all for reaching out with your condolences, prayers, and determination to help with donations to the boys who lost their home, their belongings, and most devastatingly, their friend and teammate. We can’t repair the emotional damage, but we can do our best to make sure the boys have everything they need as the start to put their lives back together.

Below I copied the email that I had administration send out to the all Albrightstudents yesterday. It details the types of donations that are needed, in addition to this we are currently in the process of setting up a fund for strictly monetary donations that could help with medical bills, as two of our boys are still recovering in the hospital. I will be able to get you more information about that in the near future.

I am in charge of collection of donations and getting everything to the boys. If you do wish to send items or gift cards please send them to:

Kelsea Guckin #598
Albright College
13th an Bern Streets
P.O Box 15234
Reading, PA 19612-5234

From all of us at Albright thank you, your help is very much appreciated. This is the copied email:

Hello Albright students,
We know that you are all aware of the tragedy that occurred early Saturdaymorning at 1321 N. 13th street. The five students who lived in that house lost a dear friend, Matt Rein. Our hearts go out to them and to Matt’s other friends and family. A candlelight vigil is being planned to honor Matt’s memory this week; a separate e-mail will follow with details.
The fire damaged or destroyed many of the students’ belongings. We are asking you all, if you are able, to donate supplies to them as they start to piece their lives back together.
First, the guys need clothes — shirts, shorts, sweatshirts, etc. We all know that we have clothes that sit in the back of our closet or drawers that we hardly wear. The guys are of average height (between 5’4” and 6’) and of athletic build, so men’s medium to X-large shirts would be perfect.
We will also be looking for items like school supplies (notebooks, pens, etc.) and toiletries (towels, detergent, linens, soap, etc.); think of the things you need and use on a daily basis that they now don’t have.
Please bring all donations to Campus Center Desk or the Schumo Center Lobby, starting Tuesday September 16th until Monday the 22nd. Any surplus items will be donated to Goodwill.
For those interested in donating monetarily, gift cards would be most useful (i.e. Target, Weis, Giant, WaWa, Wal-Mart).
We want to thank you all now because we know how eager you are to help and can foresee the amount of donations we will get. Other schools like Cabrini, West Chester, and Bloomsburg have already been in contact with us and want to help. We can do a lot of good here. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
All our love,
Kelsea Guckin (SAAC) and the Friends of 1321