Strangers Help Man With Down Syndrome Rebuild Movie Collection After Fire

"Thank you so so so so much for the outpouring of love," Mark Orsillo's sister wrote. "My family can’t put into words how grateful we are."
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People have heartwarmingly rallied around a California man with Down syndrome whose family home recently went up in flames.

The house that Mark Orsillo, 34, shares with his parents Steve and Vicki in Oroville, some 70 miles north of Sacramento, was one of 100 properties either destroyed or seriously damaged by a wildfire Saturday night ― as these photos show:

Only a handful of Orsillo’s treasured collection of 300 DVDs and videotapes survived the blaze. The loss left him “really struggling,” according to Danielle Devine, his sister.

So on Monday, Devine appealed via Facebook for people to send her brother replacements for the movies he’d lost:

“He is an OCD movie collector and lost hundreds of movies,” she wrote. “He spends most of his free time watching, organizing and talking about his movies. This is very hard for him.”

Devine’s post soon went viral, and within hours, hundreds of Facebook users were revealing which movies they were sending Orsillo or buying for him.

Over the next couple of days, Orsillo’s new collection began to take impressive shape.

The response has been amazing,” Devine told KTXL. “People from all over started to donate to his movie collection.”

Kindhearted strangers have so far sent her sibling more than 300 DVDs, meaning his collection is now larger than ever. A crowdfunding page to help the family get back on its feet has also already raised more than $11,000.

Steve Orsillio, who built the house that was lost in the fire, plans to rebuild on the property eventually.

Thank you so so so so much for the outpouring of love,” Devine wrote in an update to her original post. “My family can’t put into words how grateful we are.”

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