Help us rebuild our flooded home.

Hi everyone,

We are the Phillips-Cleary family and we are launching this GoFundMe campaign for financial support during this extremely challenging time in our lives.

For those of you who may not know, courtesy of a corroded pipe our second floor bathroom has flooded about 90% of our home. The water was showering out of our ceiling light fixtures and triggered the fire alarm which is what woke us up around 2am. Fire department and police came out to be sure everything was turned off. We called our insurance company and made a claim. A restoration company came out to mitigate damages and dry out everything. They placed several fans and dehumidifiers throughout the house. Each room became extremely hot and temps were reading over 100 degrees. Our daughter's room and bathroom were most affected as it was directly below her brother's bathroom/bedroom where the flood began. She has a 100 gallon aquarium with a goldfish she won at a fair over 6 years ago along with another black goldfish and a mini albino catfish. The temperatures in her room got to be too much for the fish and her beloved mini catfish succumbed to the heat. The other two were showing signs of stress as well. Her black goldfish was beginning to turn gold and the largest one was swimming erratically. We found a local fish aquarium to temporarily house our daughter's gold fish until such time that we can safely bring them back home. Our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet were the only rooms upstairs not affected so we placed our Chinchilla and our son's Gerbil in there. With it being so hot in the house the insurance company put us up in a hotel for a few days while the house dried out and during demolition of our ceilings, trim, flooring, drywall, etc.

I would come home during lunch to check on progress and answer any questions the restoration group had, and day after day I would come home to less and less of a house as they had to take more and more away to get the moisture out. It is just simply devastating.

We recently took the kids back to school shopping for new clothes, shoes, backpacks, & supplies and many of them were ruined in the flood. Our daughter's mattress, bed, and dresser along with her squishmallows and other personal items were all destroyed. Irreplaceable items like photos of my mother who passed away 15 years ago were in a box in the garage but the box got wet and all photos inside were lost. A ceramic plate that had our son's feet print on it from when he was 5 months old was shattered when a box bottom broke from the water it had soaked up. While insurance is financially covering many of those losses, taking the additional time to go out and replace the lost items when we are already so emotionally and physically exhausted is beyond overwhelming.

Fortunately we have the full support of our local family and friends, and they have helped us box up what is left of our belongings and gotten us this far, but this is just the beginning of our journey. Your contributions will provide critical support moving forward in the following ways:

Rebuilding costs: While our insurance is covering a lot like the replacement of the doors, trim and most of the flooring, there are some items they are not covering. For starters they will not cover the root of the problem. So we need to get a plumber, new toilets, and piping as needed, etc. Our insurance does like-for-like items, but after a contractor friend of ours came through and looked at the state of our house he said there are things that have to be added to bring house up to today's codes because codes aren't the same as they were back in 1986 when our home was built, and some of those items will likely not be covered by insurance.

Personal storage: our home is 1680 square feet and does not have a basement so there really isn't a lot of space to store larger furniture items and personal items while they do the rebuild, and our weather is too unpredictable to store items outside. Unfortunately, insurance will not cover the cost of a personal pod system or something similar.

Food expenses: As it is too hot with all those dehumidifiers to cook in the house we have had to eat out several times a day, and with a family of 4 it adds up rather quickly even when trying to go somewhere inexpensive like McDonald's.

Easing overall financial strain: I have an hourly wage position and I am completely out of P.T.O. so each time I have to take an extended lunch to meet with a contractor and make crucial homeowner decisions, or have to take the kids or myself to a doctors appointment, or either myself or the kids get sick I am losing money that I would normally be making to provide for our family. It is an extremely stressful extra burden on top of everything else our family is currently going through.

Any additional funds received will go towards new washer and dryer units, a new heat/air system and hot water heater.

How You Can Help:

Donate: No donation is too small. Every contribution, whether big or small, will make a meaningful difference in our lives.

Share: Spread the word about this campaign through social media, emails, and word of mouth. The more people who know about it, the more support we can gather.

We are so extremely grateful for all your help. It is nice to know that we are not alone in this and that we have your love and support. Thank you!