By Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – In hotel room 119, Easter came early, and it came in excess.

Dozens of people called and dropped into the Chalet Motel bearing gifts after reading Louis Arroyo’s plight on the front page of the Sun Journal on Saturday morning.

Arroyo, Luemily Melendez and their two children were burned out of an Auburn apartment last week days after they moved in. They lost everything.

Arroyo worried about getting his daughter to school, finding a place to live in two days’ time and explaining to his children that there would be no Easter baskets on Sunday.

The phone woke him up at 6 a.m., an anonymous caller from Mexico on the other end.

“They said they were going to Sears, they said they would get whatever we needed, blankets, clothes, anything,” Arroyo said.

The calls, every 10 or 20 minutes, continued all day long.

At 5 o’clock, Arroyo counted more than 40 Easter baskets. People donated gift certificates, money and toys, steered him toward apartments for rent, offered jobs and transportation.

Piles of clothes, new and used, filled a bathtub. The motel volunteered a second room to place the overflowing gifts.

“We’re taking turns answering the phone. God bless everybody,” said Arroyo, 27, and recently laid off from a cleaning position.

Luemily Melendez said she told each caller that two other families staying at the Chalet also lost homes in the Newbury Street fire. They plan on splitting all the donations with those two couples.

One church stopped by to give each family $300 for supplies.

“I am so exhausted,” said Melendez, 24. “It’s very overwhelming to know there are actually people out there willing to open their door, their hearts.”

A travel playpen and new clothes even arrived for Melendez’s unborn baby. She’s not due for several months.

Arroyo said the search for a new apartment would begin Monday. He had been warned by the American Red Cross that it didn’t have enough money to pay for the family’s hotel room beyond then. Several callers on Saturday offered to pay for additional nights.

He said he was also able to make arrangements for an Auburn school bus to swing by the hotel so his daughter wouldn’t miss a new week of first grade.

Rebecca Morris, front desk clerk at the Chalet Motel, started her shift at 2 p.m. The calls and the flow of people wouldn’t stop.

“It’s been very hectic,” she said. “Everyone comes together on holidays.”

Police believe the Tuesday-night fire that left seven families homeless was intentionally set in an apartment on the fourth floor. Kenneth Earl Rideout, 35, of Auburn, will likely make his first appearance on a charge of arson in 8th District Court in Lewiston on Monday.