Hi everyone.

My name is Arielle and the man you see in the photos on this GoFundMe is my dad, Paulo.

You may recognize him - in addition to being a Lower Slower Delaware local for the last 14 years, for the last 2+ years, he has been a dasher with DoorDash, delivering to communities all over Bethany Beach, Millville, Ocean View, Fenwick Island, and surrounding towns. Maybe he brought your food or picked up at your shop.

He loved dashing, he loved interacting with customers, and especially employees at the restaurants and shops he’d go to. He found happiness in dashing, getting him out of the house for stretches of time, giving him an opportunity to take breaks from being the primary caregiver of my mom, while also exploring the communities he so loves and meeting tons of new friends along the way.

Unfortunately, life happens, and last Tuesday - September 10th 2024, my dad was on a dash for a customer at the Dollar General in Bethany Beach and suffered a significant stroke. Thanks to quick action taken by a DG employee and a customer, 911 was called, and together with Bethany Beach Fire Company’s rapid response, LifeNet was able to airlift my father to Christiana Hospital and save his life during emergency surgery.

We know now he had been living with undiagnosed Atrial Fibrillation (A-Fib), which caused a blood clot to travel to his brain, leading to a sudden and significant stroke on the left side of his brain.

While he cannot move his right side, and has lost nearly all of his speech, he survived, he is alive, and we are so incredibly grateful to still have our dad. We are also very optimistic he will recover to a degree, though it will take months and months.

At this point in time, my parents are in need of help from our amazing community, after we’ve turned to every other available resource.

You see, my parents are wonderful people in a terrible situation, like many of us have been in.

My mom is disabled - my dad is who my mom refers to as her “meant to be” - they are wildly in love and have been married 35 years, but were best friends for years before that. My dad adores my mom and, because of that, has spent the last 16 years being her primary caregiver.

Prior to my dad’s stroke, he had minimal income - for several reasons. Dash allowed him to work on his own schedule, so he was able to take care of my mom, but that often meant many days of only being able to work a few hours before my mom needed more assistance.

As my dad is an incredibly strong and caring person, until fairly recently, my dad also spent eight years as the primary caregiver for his late-father, who suffered a stroke very similar to his own.

Due to all of this, they have been living in a tough situation, with utility bills stacking up, a house falling apart faster than my dad could fix it, and the mortgage running too late to catch up.

Now, these issues and responsibilities fall to my little sister and myself, and while we are happy to be able to support our amazingly strong parents, we simply don’t have the means to assist them very much, financially, and are looking into tons and tons of state and federal resources.

We have very little family, and no one even remotely local to us, so we’ve always been immersed in our community instead. For the first time, this includes having to ask that same amazing community for help.

We are creating this GoFundMe with the goal of raising, to start, $2000 (new goal of $3000 to aid in keeping them in a secure home with utilities on.) This money would be used in several ways in preparation for my superhero - my dad’s return home:

My father is uninsured. While waiting for the hospital social worker to find him applicable insurance, and waiting for it to begin, there may be medical supplies we need to purchase out of pocket.

More importantly, we desperately need to get my parents home ready for my dad’s return. Due to him being uninsured, this could be in as little as 2-3 weeks (early October) and he will pretty much be immobile. My dad cannot move his right side, so all standing and moving will have to be done with the assistance of my sister, my mom, or me. My parents live in a two-floor home, so we have to convert a room downstairs to be a bedroom, since we will not be able to help him up and down the stairs. This would primarily include setting up a comfy bed, TV, and a couple small things to make his room, his room.

In addition, we need to prepare the bathroom that will be available to him, making it more accessible and safe for his usage - grip bars by the toilet and sink, primarily.

My parents’ bills, most at risk to cause catastrophic issues - their gas was disconnected and they don’t have hot water. We plan to use donations raised, towards paying their delinquent gas bill and getting the company to reinstate their service, so my dad can take the hot showers he will so deserve when he gets home.

If donations were to surpass the goal of $2000 (now $3000), we would also use proceeds to pay my the next few months of my parents mortgage payments and prevent delinquencies, and to ensure they are safe in their home and not at risk of foreclosure as my dad returns home in October, begins the road to recovery, and relearns how to live his life.

Thank you to any and everyone who reads this GoFundMe. We humbly ask that you consider donating as little as $1, as every single thing will help my sister and I ensure our parents safety, well-being, and allow them to have some comforts like hot water, in a time when their lives have been thrown upside down and they’ve lost things they never thought they would.

We are so grateful for all of you in our loving community, who have shown us such kindness as the events of my dad’s stroke unfolded.

Thank you for your support and your consideration in donating to help my parents regain a sense of control in their lives, while my dad recovers from his stroke over the next several months to years.