LIVERMORE FALLS – Skip Pritsky moved a chair to dust under a table in a classroom at the high school Tuesday. He still had no glasses and had yet to buy a belt to hold up his pants.

Instead, he had pulled a rope through the belt loops.

Pritsky, 52, and his mother, Marge Pritsky, 81, escaped their burning home Saturday. It is believed a dog knocked over the electric space heater that started the fire. Two dogs escaped the blaze but another dog and a cat perished.

The custodian has worked for SAD 36 for 19 years. He said he had to take a break Tuesday – he was so overwhelmed with the support he received.

Various people had given him a total of $400 on his first day back from the fire, including $100 from the freshman class. Plus, he learned the senior class was holding a benefit supper for him and his mother on Saturday.

“It’s just kind of overwhelming for a person like me,” he said. “I’m just not used to asking anybody for anything.”

Pritsky is staying at the home of SAD 36 Building and Grounds supervisor David Goding, in a furnished room above the barn. The dogs, two German shepherds named Sadie and Rin Tin Tin, are still feeling the effects of the fire, Pritsky said. They haven’t been sleeping well at night and neither has he.

His mother is staying with a neighbor on Pleasant Street.

He has to wait to get his glasses. He said he tried to have his medical prescriptions refilled, but his health insurance wouldn’t cover it. A Rite Aid pharmacist worked with him, however, and he got his needed medicine with help from the pharmacy and Western Maine Family Health Center, he said.

He tried to get a new driver’s license, he said, but they told him he needed two forms of identification. Since everything burned up in the fire, he’s trying to get copies of some of his personal documents.

“I appreciate the generosity,” Pritsky said. “I’m overwhelmed.”