***I want to apologize for the bad video but the car is the only place to hide for privacy and every time she hears me sneak outside she thinks I am going somewhere and she wants to tag along***
my failed video plea:
My name is Michael Gimenez and I am raising funds for my little sister so that she can have a chance at finishing her course of study and start living her dream.
My little sister, Alexandra Gimenez, left high school and the company of her friends and missed out on prom and homecoming and all the other high school experiences of her junior year. She took on the grueling and demanding schedule of alternative school and ended up graduating from High School early with nothing but a bland ceremony in a small room with no fanfare. My mom, Leonora Lowery, convinced her to apply for financial aid and promised to help any way she could. The following year Alexandra applied with Ogle School in North Dallas. She was 17 years old. She had to apply for a loan and was only approved for a portion of the tuition so my mom offered to apply as well to cover the rest of the loan needed. My mom had a FAFSA(Free Application for Federal Student Aid) account since she planned to go to school when we were little but decided to put her own dream to the side to spend as much time as possible with us. For some reason her FAFSA account would not accept her password. She had to reset it in order to send the electronic promissory needed by Ogle School to finalize the financial aid portion. Days passed and no luck getting the password reset. My mom sent emails asking for assistance thru the help desk portal at studentaid. gov but got no response and the first day of class was fast approaching. My sister's recruiter told her it was okay - this is not uncommon. The recruiter suggested to go ahead and have Alexandra start classes because the 'glitch' would work itself out in a couple of days. After almost a month of desperation, a ton of emails to studentaid.gov and no solutions, my sister was forced to withdraw from school because my mom could not get her password reset and thus was not able to send Ogle School the promissory note they required to complete Alexandra's enrollment. Come to find out, 2024 FAFSA had catastrophic technical difficulties to the loan system that caused major glitches in the online portal and caused major delays and many other problems in the student loan process. We had no clue. OGLE School administration knew, the recruiter knew and neither cared. My sister was told that she would be responsible for a prorated amount of almost $3000 for the time she did attend OGLE School. A few weeks later that nationwide FAFSA glitch did work itself out and my mom was able to reset her password but it was too late. Alexandra would have to pay the prorated amount of $3000 first before she could re apply for another loan and start the process all over again. She was devastated
At the time Alexandra enrolled at OGLE School. he had no car. She worked to save up for a car but did not make enough money. She only had a part time job on weekends so the money she was able to save went to pay the train tickets, the bus fare and the occasional uber when no one else could take her to the train station at 5:30 am in the morning. The train ride was an hour long trip to the bus station so she could catch the first bus at 7 am just to make another bus connection to make it to the school by 8 am. She did the same two hour after school to make it back home every day. She never missed a day for almost a month- rain or shine. Alexandra braved vagrants and seedy people and the occasional violent outburst on the train - scared, but determined to reach her goal. All this was the fault of an overzealous recruiter that cut corners just to get the enrollment and fill a seat. In the end the price was paid by Alexandra as all her money went to getting to school any way possible.
Fast forward to the present and Alexandra applied at another very good school that offered the same Skin Care program for an Esthetician license. They did allow Alexandra to enroll and attend classes despite what she owed OGLE School but the stipulations was that she would have to pay off the $3000 before graduating in May. My mom managed to pay it down to $2000 and had it budgeted to have the rest paid off by the last week of March 2026. Then my mom got hurt at work on Feb 28 and was off work for a little over a month and was no longer able to have the income she counted on to pay off the balance in the time she planned to. Alexandra was forced to take a leave of absence with a deadline to pay the balance owed to OGLE School. We just found out that the personal loan my mom tried to take out recently was denied and now we are scrambling to keep the same thing from happening again. If Alexandra is forced to withdraw she will be responsible for the prorated amount that will be owed to the present school which will push the total amount she will owe to be close to $10,000. This new amount will have to be paid off before attempting to go to school again.
Please, I want to ask all the people that we love and consider friends to help us - if you cannot help with a monetary donation at lease help share our plea so that we can beat the deadline of this Wednesday April 22, 2025. If we can touch the hearts of 200 people to make a small donation of just $10 a piece we can make a miracle happen! Please help us help my baby sister.
We provided pictures of documents to support this fundraiser because we know there are many scams out there and this economy is hard and money is tight for everyone everywhere.