Family's Manchester home burned to ground in alleged bias crime. Here's how you can help

In 2017, Brenda and Angel Rivas purchased a wooded lot in the Pine Lake Park neighborhood of Manchester, where Brenda grew up, to build their dream home. Five years later, in the fall of 2022, they’d finally saved enough money to break ground. They had sold a restaurant they owned in Beachwood to help raise the capital.

Last week, with the building nearing completion, it burned to the ground. Ron Carr, 34, of Manchester was charged with 36 criminal counts stemming from a bias-crime spree that targeted Jewish residents by spray-painting Nazi symbols on more than a dozen homes and setting fire to the Rivas’ home-in-waiting.

Now Toms River resident Ashley Lamb is leading a coalition of community members who are intent on helping the Rivas family back on their feet. Lamb launched a GoFundMe campaign and her husband, Toms River councilman and attorney Justin Lamb, is representing the family pro bono.

“We are trying to gather as a community and make them whole again and rebuild their house,” Ashley Lamb said. “It’s a very scary, crazy situation and this really could have happened to anyone.”

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Lamb said there is a growing Orthodox Jewish community in the neighborhood and although the Rivas family is not Jewish, it appears as though “the individual who targeted the Jewish community assumed this new construction was going to be inhabited by a Jewish family.”

She said the outpouring of support from Orthodox Jewish neighbors has been “above and beyond” and “a lot people from the Orthodox community feel personally connected to this.”

The message is, “We’re not going to stand for this in our community, this is not OK, it’s not acceptable, and the bottom line is any community is stronger together,” Lamb said.

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The house’s foundation and frame were set and the windows were about to be put in, Lamb said. Brenda and Angel Rivas and their daughters, ages 10 and 2, have been renting in Toms River with Brenda’s parents as they awaited its completion. The house was designed for all six of them to live in.

“The fire was so hot, the siding on some neighbors’ homes melted,” Lamb said.

Within days of the fire, Lamb said, Farmingdale-based Boulder Petroleum was conducting a free cleanup of the site. Lamb, who formerly served as a project manager with the post-superstorm Sandy charity Hometown Heroes, said she has been working closely with Manchester Mayor Rob Arace, who has endorsed the GoFundMe and the Facebook page she created, Rebuild Rivas Pine Lake Park, on social media.

Lamb said the Rivas family does not own insurance for the house.

“Mayor Arace has reached out to (state Sen.) Vin Gopal and Gov. (Phil) Murphy to see if there is a victim assistance fund for the family,” Lamb said.

In the meantime, she welcomes any and all assistance — financial, material or moral.

“The outpouring of support has been fantastic,” she said. “People are coming out of the woodwork to help.”

To help, email RebuildRivas@gmail.com or visit the GoFundMe campaign titled “Rebuild Rivas Pine Lake Park.” Updates also will be posted on the Facebook page titled Rebuild Rivas Pine Lake Park.

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Manchester NJ: GoFundMe for family whose home burned in hate crime