Zeia asks for help to get a stove

ZEIA FLEMMING buys food daily and has been doing so since August 8, when she moved into her Housing Development Authority (HDC) apartment.

She and her 12-year-old son have to eat bread for breakfast and dinner every day because they do not have a stove or a fridge.

Ever since a shower of rain in January drenched her one-room shack in The Coconuts, Pleasantville, the very morning it was partially demolished by her landlord, Flemming has been without a stove.

The mother of four told Newsday yesterday that while she is ever grateful to the HDC, for she and her son can rest comfortably at nights, she is yet to cook a meal in her apartment.

She said she is longing to prepare a hot dinner for her son when he returns from school.

“I’m appealing to anyone who has an old stove. When the rain came, where the landlord break the house, the stove stop lighting. When I get it to light, it start blacking up the pot. Then it stop lighting,” Flemming said.

Newsday readers had promised to help Flemming when she and her son moved into the apartment with only a mattress on the floor and some clothing.

But would-be donors complained they were unable to reach Flemming on her cellphone.

She explained, “The rain come down hard and my phone get wet. I put the phone out in the sun and it dry up. Well, it look like it now start to work again.”

Flemming is also appealing to the public to assist her with a bed and some chairs.

Her son, who is due to sit the SEA next year, started school on Monday, wearing a crumpled uniform.

“I hoping to buy a heater soon, but right now, whatever public assistance I living from, is enough to buy bake or bread and cheese every day,” Flemming said.

Flemming has three other children, 20, 24 and 25, who live with their own families.

Anyone wishing to help Flemming, can contact her at 272-9724.