My name is Samantha—or, as some of your high schoolers and recent graduates know me as, Ms. Turner. I have a 3-year-old son named Jax. He has Non-Verbal Autism and is fully dependent on being cared for.

After a chest X-ray for an upper respiratory infection in February of 2024 they found that I have a birth defect that we were unaware of my whole life. This all resulting in me having to have open-heart surgery on April 15, 2025. With me only being 29 years old, this is something I never thought would happen to me, especially this early in life. We just recently lost my father to heart disease and surgery complications, so this really hit home for my family and me. I currently share an apartment with my disabled mother, and my little sister will be coming to town for the first week to help out during my recovery.

I will be in the hospital for 5–6 days and confined to my bed/apartment for 2 months after my surgery. Unfortunately, this means absolutely no working. With me being the main source of income in the house, it puts us in a very bad financial situation.

I’ve been asked by so many members of the community how they can help and what they can do. I know that with my son needing full-time care, adding me to the equation is going to be taxing. I’m asking that, if you know me personally, to please reach out during my recovery and give my mom and my sister a breather and a chance to step away for a couple of hours. If your schedule doesn’t allow that, and you’d like to contribute to the financial conflict, we have made a GoFundMe and would be more than willing to provide account numbers to certain bills if you’d prefer to go straight to the source of a bill.

We are very grateful for any help and especially any prayers that are sent our way during this hard time. Love you all so very much and thank you for any help given to us!!