Arantza's best friends campaign

Hi everyone! We are Nelle, Mary, and Maria, and we created this gofundme for our best friend Arantza.

We all come from different parts of the world - Israel, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States - and we are all former division I college tennis players from Northern Illinois University. We became friends the moment we became teammates, and we have been through hell and back together over the past 5 years. Not long after completing her collegiate tennis career, Arantza was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis). For those of you who do not know what MS is, it is an autoimmune disease in which your body does not recognize its own cells, and consequently starts attacking itself thinking its cells are something foreign and dangerous. Arantza had a host of different health issues while we were in college and playing tennis, but throughout the 5 years all of those issues were attributed to other sorts of minor injuries and illnesses. In retrospect, we all see now that the symptoms of her major health diagnosis began long before we ever even knew each other.

After recently having all graduated from NIU we are all working to prepare to take the next steps into our adult life. In Arantza's case, that means going back to Mexico, looking for a job, and possibly going back to school to become a veterinarian. Before leaving, though, we are all taking a trip to Orlando, Florida in August to celebrate our graduation and to spend a fun week together before we all depart to our different home countries around the world. We had gone to Orlando several times for spring break tennis trips, but never had the chance to really explore the area and experience all it had to offer. The three of us - Nelle, Mary, and Maria - have set up everything so Arantza will not have to pay a cent to travel with us. The medical bills from all of the hospitalization she has received in the past 6 months have taken a steep financial toll on her and her family back in Mexico. We feel it was only right for us to pitch in ourselves as well as work to raise funds to cover the whole expense of her trip. Air fares, hotels, and car rental have already been set up. However, we don't have enough money left to cover her ticket to Universal Studios. Since both big theme park groups are expensive (Disney World and Universal Studios), we decided to go with only the two Universal parks. Arantza is a big Harry Potter fan, and we thought she would be the most happy visiting those two places.

So, this is why we are asking for your help!! The total expense for a 2-day trip to the parks is around $250, and that's what we are hoping to raise.

Please help us make this trip perfect for our friend! We want to give her a memory that will last a lifetime; something that will make her smile when everything in the past several months has seemed to go wrong. Thanks for reading and we appreciate any help that you can give!