Help For Gio

7/15/21: A message from Jeb Brugmann to the friends of Gio and Vonnie, old and new:

As our communities reopen and recover and our lives return to ‘normal,’ this is an important time for those of us who have come through in decent shape to offer support to families, friends, frontline workers, and neighbors who have been hardest hit—and who will be struggling to recover for some time to come.

My friends Giovanna and Vonnie are confronted with that struggle. I have known and collaborated with Gio and Vonnie, a very resourceful and dedicated mother-daughter household and team in Buffalo NY, for five years. Before the COVID crisis even began, each of them were already confronting major healthcare challenges and related costs and employment issues. Then the crisis hit, hospital resources were allocated to COVID, and Vonnie’s condition worsened.  Vonnie was transported to, and has spent much of the period in, a hospital in Rochester, an hour and a half’s drive away. Gio had to rent and then lease a car and dedicate her days to advocating for and looking after her mom—with no economic buffer. 

This GoFundMe was initially created to help Gio meet that specific challenge, and it succeeded.  Though Gio was initially reluctant to ask for help, she allowed her friends to appeal to the wider community around her.  That community responded, and Gio was able to spend the following months traveling from Buffalo to Rochester to look after Vonnie.  She feels certain that Vonnie is alive today thanks to that support, and lives in gratitude for that blessing.

But Vonnie remains hospitalized and, since then, bills have continued to stack up, presenting other challenges.

Many of us have had the good fortune and the resources to buffer ourselves from these kinds of combined health and economic impacts. Some of us have been able to increase our savings during the retail and travel lockdowns. Others of us are starting to go out to restaurants again, to book vacations, etc.

This is my appeal to share a bit of our good fortune to support the recovery of others—and specially of Gio and Vonnie.

If you are not already supporting a highly impacted family or families in their COVID period recoveries, a contribution made here—even a small one of $20—would make a real difference.

It would also be a way to collectively demonstrate the ‘new normal’ we need to create-- one of greater solidarity, that reflects the lessons of interdependence and the evidence of unequal vulnerability, which this crisis has so fully exposed.

Thank you for giving this appeal your consideration, and for your contribution if you are able to make one. And best wishes, I know on behalf of Gio and Vonnie as well, for your solid returns to good ‘normals’ as well.

**If you're new to this platform, please note that you'll be offered the chance to "tip" GoFundMe for this service.  If you'd like to please do, but it's NOT required and certainly does NOT have to be 12%, which someone pointed out was the default.  You can change that setting.  Thank you!**