Manna Head Chef Surprised with $5,000 After House Fire

Weeks after Seanan Culloty lost everything in a house fire, he walked into Alpine Bank in Durango ready to talk about options to purchase a home.

Instead, he was surprised with a $5,000 check.

“All the sudden, Rotary, Chris Bettin and Alpine Bank came out and surprised me with this check from Chris Bettin,” said Culloty, head chef and manager at Manna, a Durango soup kitchen. “At first, I thought it happened to be a coincidence that they happened to be at Alpine at the same time. … Then I was just blown away.”

Culloty was able to recover only a few photos and a cast iron pan from his apartment after the Feb. 6 fire in north Durango. In the weeks since, the community has rallied around him: Manna started a GoFundMe for Culloty with the goal to raise $10,000. It had raised $25,105 as of Wednesday.