A woman who is used to helping others who are homeless has found herself receiving help after her family lost just about everything in a house fire this weekend.

The Franklin chapter of Veterans of Foreign Wars is organizing a clothing collection for the Ellsworth family of Carrsville.

The family, with five of the seven children home at the time, was watching a movie when they realized their house was on fire, Lisa Ellsworth said.

“It happened all at once,” she said, adding that the windows in the back of the house were exploding as the family ran out of the front door. “It’s a really humbling experience, because my job is to re-house homeless families.”

Red Barnes, a member of VFW 4411, said two of the family’s seven children are adopted. Daniel Ellsworth is retired Navy. Lisa Ellsworth works at ForKids as a family case manager for the Suffolk and Western Tidewater programs.

“They’re pretty special folks, I think,” Barnes said. He posted on his Facebook page that Lisa Ellsworth was “finding it hard to be asking, since she is normally on the other side of the desk providing help.”

The fire on Harvest Drive broke out Saturday night. Paid and volunteer firefighters from Holland, Suffolk, Windsor, Franklin and Hunterdale responded to assist, according to the Carrsville Volunteer Fire Department’s Facebook page.

Lisa Ellsworth said the fire appears to have started as an electrical fire in the wall in the garage and ran up into the unfinished part of the attic.

“It took most of the house,” Barnes said on Monday. “The house is condemned and has to be rebuilt.”

Barnes said he believes the family was able to retrieve some personal mementos from the wreckage, but “all their clothes and stuff was all gone,” he said.

The VFW is organizing the clothing drive for the family and also is able to take monetary donations for the family.

Donations should be dropped off at 3385 Beaver Dam Road, Franklin, VA 23851. Checks can be made out to the VFW and mailed to the same address, with a notation in the memo line that it is for the Ellsworth family.

Barnes said he can collect clothes from those unable to make it to Franklin and take them himself. Contact him at 871-4517.

The family’s sizes are below.

• Lisa (mom) — pants 20; shirts 2XL; shoes 10 women’s
• DJ — age 7; pants 8; shirts 8; shoes 4.5 boys’
• Nia — age 13; pants 5 junior; shirts men’s small; shoes 7.5 women’s
• Deacon — age 14; pants 28/30; shirts men’s small; shoes 11 men’s
• Alysia — age 16; pants 12; shirts medium; shoes 8.5 women’s
• Alaura — age 18; pants 12; shirts medium/large; shoes 8 women’s
• Dillon — age 20; pants 36/32; shirts extra large; shoes 13.5/14 men’s
• Drake — age 20; pants 28/34; shirts medium; shoes 11 men’s