Many of my friends from Santa Monica may know Jill Russell but in case you don’t I’ll tell you a little about her.  She and I met on the first day of 7th grade at Lincoln Jr. High when we both were in beginning band.  She played the trumpet (and was better than almost all the boys. . .LOL) and I played the flute.  But Mr. Schwabe convinced us to both switch to the French horn (and she was always better than me!).  She is a strong, proud, self-sufficient woman with a love of music and animals.  She takes care of herself and her babies and never asks for help, but at this time I am asking for help for her.

Earlier this year Jill was having a lot of pain, and after going to see her doctor, found that she had fibroid tumors the size of cantaloupes and needs to have a radical hysterectomy.  This means that she will be completely down for a couple weeks and out of work for probably a couple months.  State disability will only be giving her about 50% of her salary from her J_O_B and nothing for the time she spends teaching kids to love music the way she does, so this creates the struggle. . .

She has a 1-year old pit-puppy that she adopted from Last Bad Day Rescue who has TONS of energy and won’t understand that Mom can’t take care of her. She also has a 15-year old, once-feral, kitty that needs love and attention too.  With my menagerie I can’t take them in so the best for them would be boarding, but that costs MONEY!

So here’s the deal. . .boarding will be about $1,500, and help with visiting nurses, rent, food, etc. will be a bit more.  So I’m hoping that with my 1,000+ friends on Facebook we can raise $3,000 to help her through this tough time (that’s only $3.00 per friend!).

The surgery is happening in less than 2 weeks so time is of the essence!!  Any help would be so greatly appreciated!!!