Bring Heat Back for Lolly and Her Cats

Life is tough for so many of us right now... and it's so much more daunting living without heat. I've been living without heat in my house since January 1.

My 90 year old boiler was on the fritz through the holidays and then died completely on New Years day.

In addition to a laundry list of other challenges that I'm facing right now, the icing (hah! punny!) on the cake is that I've been heating my house with 4 space heaters and my gas stove for several weeks. Which means that I have to be home babysitting space heaters as much as possible, some mornings I wake up and it's 42 degrees INSIDE the house, and my cutting room and sewing studio are both closed off to conserve the heat which makes production rather challenging. (The cats are less than pleased... Freyja has started sleeping on the kitchen table in front of the stove.)

I recognize that made the choice to sacrifice my creature comforts in order to build a small, sustainable business, which I knew would make things tricky. But I never anticipated this level of challenge to arise. Although The Greener Gift is growing (I'm attending my first Wholesale Show in March to grow the wholesale arm of the business!!) I'm still at an income level that qualifies me for state aid, state insurance, and energy assistance. Which explains why I don't have the emergency fund to remedy this situation.

After countless phone calls and wild goose chases, hours on hold, and several "you're next in the queue" and then being disconnecteds... I've exhausted all possible options for state assistance programs. I could ramble for a very long time about all the options I've tried... but that would be exhausting for both of us. Instead... the key points are:

So my ask... is for help to pay for ductless heat pumps for my house. The original quotes I received were for $30-38K for the whole house. This is in no way feasible. I was able to negotiate one HVAC person to do a very abbreviated system (only 2 heads for the entire house instead of 6, and a lower quality manufacturer) for $9800. He will keep all of the green energy credits to offset the cost, I will pull my own permit, and it SHOULD be enough to get by with coverage on the main floor of the house.

It's VERY much not a perfect scenario. But it would mean that I have heat again and can leave my house for more than a few hours at a time. (The longer I'm gone with the space heaters off, the colder the house gets.)

The other $2200 I'm requesting will go to offsetting the cost of gas and electric bills this month since they're going to be astronomical due to my "unconventional" heating methods.

I feel it's also worth noting that due to this catastrophe, I'm applying for additional jobs/work in addition to running The Greener Gift to try to make it work. But it'll be a whiiile before I can save enough to cover this.

Thank you in advance for your help getting heat back in my house. Every little bit helps, including simply sharing this fundraiser. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

PS- I know some people prefer to send money via PayPal or Venmo - if you'd prefer that, no pressure at all though, I'm @LollyNicol on both platforms

And to illustrate the chill... photographic evidence that the cats have all decided that they like being under the covers...