This is one of the hardest things we have ever had to do.  It is with fear and trembling that we put this forward because it means exposing the rawest parts of our family’s story and exposing our wounds in a public way.  But we are out of options and desperate to move our family forward.  So here’s our story:  After Dan made the gut wrenching decision to sell his boat and leave fishing to start culinary school and move our family in a forward direction, he was presented with the opportunity to lease a lobster license for the season.  We asked all of those whose opinions we valued and everyone agreed it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.  Dan’s plan was to take a quarter or two off of school to fish the lobster season in hopes that the proceeds from the season would allow him to completely focus on school when he returned and give our family more financial security. 

It was a much slower season than anticipated and we paid 30% off the top to the owner of the license in addition to fuel and bait costs, so by the time Dan got to December there were days and even weeks he was barely breaking even.  The decision was made by the license owner to end the season in December instead of March. This decision was a breach of our contract with him and cost us irreparably.   It removed hopes of more income and Dan recovered as many of the traps as he could at our expense.  Once he had recovered as many traps as he could, the license was transferred back and the boat keys were returned (this was also a breach of the contract because we were not allowed the full season to bring in gear).  Dan, trying to be honorable and hold to his word and side of the agreement, still offered to pay for the lost gear.  We tallied up the cost of replacing the missing traps and added an additional sum for the repair of the rest of the traps and came to $16,000, which we went deep into debt to come up with and which both of our families gave sacrificially to help us with in order to uphold our end of the agreement. 

Weeks after the check for that amount was accepted we received a letter from the lawyer of the license owner informing us that they would pursue legal action if we did not pay an additional $9,000.  Not only did we not feel we owed him this money, we had no way to come close to paying him that much more.  We had used every resource we had, and borrowed every penny open to us to pay the initial $16,000.    We have done everything in our effort to act with integrity and responsibility and were backed into a corner with no good option.  We had no choice but to retain our own lawyer to protect ourselves. Though our lawyer thought we had a very good chance of winning if it came to litigation, due to the breach of contract and the ineptidude of his lawyer, the fees could be many times what we have lost already and there is no security in getting any money from him.  In addition our house had served at collateral in the orginal contract and we didn't want to do anything that would cause a lien or other action against our home. Thankfully, after stressful weeks and more threats, requiring action from our lawyer, our lawyer was able to bring them to an agreement to bring this trauma to an end. But now we need to come up with a sum we don’t have in addition to the legal fees accrued in order to move forward as a family and not risk losing so much more.


We have exhausted every other resource available to us, and so we are in the very humbling position of asking you, those that know us best to help our family move forward.  Whatever little you could contribute would mean the world to us.  Even if you can’t give, thank you for caring enough to read our story, to stand by us and to pray for us. 

There are so many more details, it was a long effort to avoid being where we are now, so if you have any questions feel free  facebook message me.