Community rallies after DC fire destroyed tour guide’s home – WTOP News

A woman who built a tour company focusing on women’s history in D.C. is trying to rebuild her life after a house fire took her two cats, her personal possessions, and the essentials to run her business all in one night.

A Tour of Her Own founder Kaitlin Calogera lost everything when her Petworth home burned to the ground on March 14. She and her seven neighbors got out safely, but her cats Ghost and Rae didn’t make it, and neither did a neighbor’s dog. She also lost everything she needed to run her business, which Calogera operated out of her home.

“It’s a little bit of a blur, but it was, obviously, a lot. It was pretty, pretty scary. I just was staring at my apartment building, getting burned to the ground essentially,” Calogera said.

Adding to the complexity of the situation was the timing of the fire.

“My work is in women’s history. And March is Women’s History Month. It is the busiest month of my year. It is the month when I make my most income. It’s where I have the most responsibilities, so for this to kind of happen in the middle of the month was definitely not ideal, timewise,” Calogera said.

When she found her equipment, laptop and a case of the guidebook she co-authored damaged from the fire, she wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“It’s hard to see that, and I did share some of those pictures with my community because it’s like, ‘This is the reality of it,’” she said.

Calogera, who started her company based on her love of travel and women’s history, was especially distraught about her collection of books, some of which were signed by their authors, women she admires.

“And I held those really close to me because they were moments where I met some of our greatest leaders. Like, I had waited in line at Politics and Prose for like three hours just to meet Michelle Obama, and I had a signed book by her inside my apartment, and it’s just completely gone now. Same is true for Dr. Carla Hayden, who was the Librarian of Congress and just a hero of mine … there are a lot of memories and a lot of experiences that … I felt like were taken from me in this experience as well,” she said.

After learning of her loss, fans of A Tour of Her Own, as well as community supporters have raised more than $50,000 in an online fundraiser started by the DC Fray Magazine. The messages left on the page have given her strength, she said.

“Once I’ve had a chance to take a breath, I’ll rethink of maybe some stronger ways to reinvest some of this money back into the business, which inevitably goes back into our D.C. community and our tourism community,” Calogera said.

Calogera started her company in 2018 and co-authored her women’s history tour guide book during the pandemic.