Hi friends!
We are Marti and Sarah Mahood-Wormuth, and we are a queer couple currently residing in the state of Virginia.
Sarah is an amazing special education teacher in a nearby county and is licensed to teach in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Marti (me) is a freelance social media content creator, and is known across the internet as ProfFaridoon, usually shortened to "Prof" or "Fari."
We've been trying to leave Virginia for almost 2 years now, but last summer, our attempts to move to Pennsylvania fell through for a number of reasons.
Then November happened.
In December, Marti's therapist brought up a little blip that Marti had shared when the process of getting out of Virginia became overwhelming - why not go to Canada?
It didn't go away. In fact, Marti started talking about it to Sarah and in January, we decided to hire a lawyer to help us get there. And it's been a journey ever since.
We don't feel safe, and with the Department of Education in shambles, we are concerned that being a queer person and someone who works in special education is going to make teaching in the US even more difficult for Sarah. We visited Ottawa over Spring Break - and we want it to be our new home.
Right now, we are in the midst of the process. We've paid the money, filled out the paperwork, and are in the Express Entry Pool. We've spent about $5000 on our lawyer, educational equivalency paperwork, and even taking the IELTS test (to show that we're fluent in English).
Now comes the technical part - actually making the move happen.
We're estimating our costs to be another $5000 or so for this part. This includes things like:
- Vet appointments for our two wonderful tuxedo boys so they can travel internationally.
- Travel items to help the boys enjoy the trip.
- Hiring the moving company to bring our items across the border.
- Paying for storage until we can move our stuff across the border.
- Paying for our temporary visas.
Anything that we get beyond this will go to our savings, which is what we've used to hire the lawyer and do everything thus far. A strong savings account can help with immigration, as well.
If you can't give, that's okay. You can share this - that's a big help for us too.
Thank you for supporting us. We appreciate everything that you do and how much you love us.
(The picture above was taken by Sarah, The artist for the storage bin is Jimmy Baptiste.)
~Marti and Sarah
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Marti and Sarah Mahood-Wormuth
Organizer
Elkton, VA