The widow of one of the Noyes Street duplex fire victims has started an online fundraising campaign to create a memorial artwork for the six young adults who died from the Nov. 1 fire in Portland.
Ashley Summers, widow of fire victim Steven Summers, created a donation page Friday on the fundraising site gofundme.com.
Ashley Summers, whom the page lists as chair of the Noyes Street Fire Memorial Committee, is seeking to raise $10,000 to commission local artist Pandora LaCasse to create a memorial art installation to be called “Stars of Light” to honor the six fire victims.
The committee’s goal is to unveil the installation on the first anniversary of the fire at a memorial event in Longfellow Park, which is near the scene of the fire, the donation page says.
“The Noyes Street fire forever changed our lives, we lost our loved ones, we lost everything,” it says. “Pandora’s ‘Stars of Light’ symbolizes” a continuation “of the light that’s within.”
LaCasse is the artist behind the lighted holiday displays that adorn several parks, buildings and streets in downtown Portland.
She began creating her signature holiday displays for the Portland Downtown District more than 15 years ago, has since designed similar installations for the L.L. Bean campus in Freeport and for other businesses in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Kentville, Nova Scotia.
She also has created year-round installations for homes in Cape Elizabeth, Yarmouth, Peaks Island, Great Diamond Island, Little Diamond Island and Austin, Texas.
Five people who were on the second and third floors of the Noyes Street duplex died of smoke inhalation in the fire, which investigators said was caused by discarded cigarette butts. The sixth victim, Steven Summers, leapt from the building but was badly burned and later died of his injuries.
Gregory Nisbet, the owner of the duplex, was indicted Friday on six counts of manslaughter by the Cumberland County grand jury.
The grand jury also indicted Nisbet on three misdemeanor code violations for allegedly not having working smoke detectors, clear stairwells and a second means of escape from an upstairs bedroom.
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