Canberra comes together to support Kian Grainger after fire destroys Kambah home

A fire destroyed his most treasured possessions, but the blaze showed Kian Grainger how much he really has.

Kian Grainger with his cat, Bonney. Picture: Supplied

When Kian Grainger’s home burnt down earlier this week, he lost many “cool, old-school” possessions he’d been collecting since childhood.

But as the primary school teacher’s assistant says, he can dwell on it or he can “get moving”.

He’s choosing to do the latter, with help from the dozens of Canberrans who have donated to a fundraising campaign and left him “blown away” by their generosity.

“I lost a lot of material things, but I found out how much I have otherwise,” Mr Grainger told this masthead on Friday, describing the community’s response to his plight as “wild”.

Mr Grainger was out for dinner with his father on Monday night when he received a call from a police officer, who told him he needed to return to his rented home in Canberra’s south immediately.

Kian Grainger's cat, Bonney, which was found after going missing during a fire. Picture: Supplied

When he reached the granny flat in Kambah, he found it, and his most treasured possessions, had been burnt and destroyed in a suspected electrical fire.

Making matters worse, his cat, Bonney, was missing.

The feline was thankfully found the following night, starting what Mr Grainger described as “an upward trajectory”.

He made the pleasant discovery on Wednesday morning that his sister, Aislinn Grainger, had set up a GoFundMe campaign to help him deal with the financial fallout of the fire.

The first time he looked at the fundraising page, nearly $3000 had already been donated.

At the time of writing on Friday afternoon, 69 people had donated a combined $9852, leaving the campaign less than $150 short of its $10,000 target.

Mr Grainger said he was very appreciative of the support he had received from not only people he knew or knew of, but also from anonymous donors and names he did not recognise.

The support has also stunned his sister, who told this masthead the whole family was “quite baffled” by the overwhelming response.

Ms Grainger described her brother as “very kind, generous and funny”, adding that he felt a bit guilty that people were giving him money.

But she said Mr Grainger’s loved ones had been reassuring him that he was “a wonderful person” and it was OK for people to want to support him.

For now, Mr Grainger and Bonney are staying with his father in the ACT suburb of Duffy.

He said the fundraising donations would provide “a leg up” in terms of being able to replace furniture, appliances and the like.

While his collectibles, including Tazos, cards, statues, comics and books, are sadly now gone, he hopes to acquire more sentimental items in the fullness of time.

He said trying to replace everything at once would not be the same.

“That’s not collecting,” he said. “That’s just having.”

People wishing to donate to the GoFundMe campaign can do so here.