Hit-and-run family gets new home
The Vancouver family trying cope with the unsolved hit-and-run death of Leonida Jimenez-Tumanda is getting a temporary new home, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
Jimenez-Tumanda died in East Vancouver earlier this month as she was walking home from work, leaving her husband, Nilo Tumanda, and the couple’s daughters.
“All I want to say is thank you so much for your generosity. Thank you,” Tumanda said Saturday as he and his children took temporary possession of a new home.
Jimenez-Tumanda, 43, was killed as she crossed at East 43rd Avenue at Prince Edward Street. The driver fled the scene.
Her two daughters, 20-year-old Maria and Anessa, 4, are making the difficult adjustment to life without their mother.
“It's been really hard for her,” Maria said of her younger sister. “She cries every time, for everything. She cries.”
A developer has donated the house to the family. The building will be demolished with a year to make way for a townhouse complex on Cambie Street.
But for at least eight months, the family won’t have to worry about bills or rent.
The family said it has one Christmas wish — that the driver of the vehicle that killed Leonida Jimenez-Tumanda come forward.
