(JTA) — Ivanka Trump made a $1,000 donation to help build a family learning center on the site of the Brooklyn home of seven children who died in a house fire.
Trump gave through the GoFundMe page using her own name, DNAinfo first reported. Some donors have given anonymously.
The project has garnered more than $133,000 from 734 people, with a goal of raising $1 million.
Gayle Sassoon, the mother of the children, announced the plan in her first public remarks on the March 2015 tragedy in an interview with the New York Post. Trump told DNAinfo in a statement that she decided to donate to the project after reading about it and being inspired by Sassoon’s determination.
Sassoon and one daughter, Siporah, 16, escaped by jumping out a second-floor window.
Sassoon ran into the fire to try to save her children, leading to third degree burns on 45 percent of her body, including her face, which is covered with an elastic medical mask.
The family center she envisions, which has already been designed by an architect, has seven pillars to represent the children that would each bear one of their names and an atrium named for Siporah. It will include a library and a men’s and women’s learning center, according to DNAinfo.
Her children killed in the fire, ranging in age from 5 to 16, are buried in Israel.
An investigation determined the cause of the fire was a hot plate left on for Shabbat.
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