Man with Down syndrome loses everything in a fire, then something amazing happens

A man with Down syndrome was struck with joy at the incredible kindness of strangers when his story of loss made it to the internet.

Mark Orsillo, 34, lost his prized movie collection along with everything else in a wildfire that devoured his home in Oroville, California. His parents, Steve and Vicki Orsillo, had only minutes to evacuate and grabbed as many valuables as possible.

Their son only wanted to save his collection of about 300 DVD movies, but they were only able to take about 20.

"He has all the movies from the '90s. He's been collecting them for years," his sister Devine told CBS News. "That's Mark's life. He's a movie guy."

His mother Vicki relates how he began to cry when she told him their house had been utterly destroyed, along with his movie collection.

"He was really struggling," Devine said. "He's usually so happy all the time. I felt bad I didn't grab more."

So she went to Facebook in a call for help, hoping people might donate old movies to cheer him up.

This is my brother Mark and he has Down Syndrome. He lost his house to the #wallfire on my parent's property. He is an OCD movie collector and lost hundreds of movies. He spends most of his free time watching, organizing and talking about his movies. This is very hard for him. Would you help Derek and I do this small thing for him? Here are some ideas! They can definitely used movies, he loves them all!

The response was remarkable.

Just 24 hours later, Mark had received more than 400 movies.

Here's his overjoyed reaction at the kindness of strangers:

"Are you kidding me? Are you serious?" he said.

CBS reports that in addition to the movies, the family received from $10,000 from complete strangers to help them begin to rebuild from the devastating fire.