Update:

Thank you everyone for your generosity to support our family Van and a ceiling lift!

Last year was such a blessed year for our family because with your help, we were able to initiate our payment for our handicap family van and installing a ceiling lift in Janelle's room.

The van costed $105,000 and the ceiling lift costed $10,206.

We were able to get $40,000 loan from our state and received $79,967 from our local non-profit organization.

We put the downpayment for both products and purchased both with monthly payment of $650 for our van and used our saved money for ceiling lift.

We are so happy that we could travel as a family in one van to support one another and be able to do so many fun things in summer of 2025.

Our kids really enjoyed the long trip to Niagara Falls to Hershey parks and Great Wolf Lodge.

Also, the ceiling lift has changed my life as a caregiver and for Janelle. She smiles whenever she is lifted by the lift because it looks like she is getting a ride from carnival ride, which she cannot do it ever, but this lift system gives her a bit of fun daily.

We are so blessed to have the handicap van and the lift!

We are more blessed to have you all as our community who support us and helped us for the products that we needed for a long time.

Thank you so much for your love!

We still need to pay the $40,000. With this economy, $650 a month with our current car payment seems to be a bit more challenging with one income especially Jeremiah had to reduce his shift to healthier schedule due to his health problems.

So we are a bit short in our income and struggling to pay the full price of the van.

If anyone could read this and help us out a bit more, that would be so much helpful for our financial status at the moment.

Could you help raise more fund to pay for our van please?

Thank you again for your amazing support and love!

Love you all!

This is Janelle's mom, Angela (Jonghyoun) Cheatum.

Our Cheatum family consists of 7 members: Jeremiah, Jonghyoun (Angela), Janelle (14), Jason (13), Jeanne (11), Joshua (9), and Jonathan (5). We are very blessed to have such beautiful children that God has given us and are thankful for them each day in our lives.

Of all our beautiful blessings, Janelle has taught us what it means to love and to be patient throughout 12 years as she was diagnosed with RETT Syndrome in 2012. We are so happy to have her in our lives. However, we are saddened by the hard times that she has to face due to her medical conditions.

She is suffering from so much pain from many seizures, apneas, low muscle tone, bone weakness, mouth dryness, being non-verbal, non-ambulatory, and recently tensed muscle tone. She still smiles and is very loving to us as we talk to her always. She loves her massage time, music, reading books, being surrounded by her siblings, and watching movies with family. She loves riding her bus! She loves going to different places and interacting with people. I have heard many people say that she speaks to their souls. She is a very sweet and joyful girl!

Unfortunately, recently she has more stiff joints and muscles as she enters her teenage years. We need to do more therapies and hospital visits to Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins, which takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes from where we live.

We are here to ask for your help in fundraising for our handicap-accessible van for our family and for a ceiling lift.

Back in 2018, we purchased our handicap-accessible van and now it is broken (the right side airbag is not fixable due to wire complications), and we are at a huge financial loss for our van.

We are still driving our wheelchair-accessible van, but it also gets too tight for our kids in the back seats: there is no legroom for them right behind the wheelchair.

Our insurance would not repair or give the full cost for the broken van, and we have been under a lot of stress since October 2023. The insurance covered a normal rental van for two months, and then we have been paying since January 2024. We received our van back after fixing the door and adjusting the ramp system in March.

However, it is time to change our old van to a new one that has more space and more seats available for our big family. We are financially very challenged for our new van purchase because they cost $139K plus title and taxes with handicap accessibility for our family with 4 other kids. With our old van in broken condition, the van would not be tradable.

We have been trying to get a small-sized van costing about $35,000. However, as Janelle's seizures, apneas, and muscle tone are getting worse these days, we need to have a caregiver with her in the vehicle when we go places and for her medical appointments. Whenever we go places as a whole family, we have been driving two cars, and it can be pretty hard with no support for Janelle in the back seat. The kids have been helping in the back seat to turn off the G-tube pump, but they cannot see or help Janelle since they are so young. I had to pull over to check on Janelle on our long-distance trips when she was having some episodes that required attention.

We had our first family trip to VA in the summer of 2024 in 3 years. It was the first time traveling with oxygen supplies with us. Traveling with two vehicles, there have been times that my husband and I got separated, and I was left to pull over on the side with our van with my little ones alone to check on Janelle. It was so devastating at times.

We need a new van that can have an extra seat for an extra adult for our family. 7 seats total in our van is what we need. And there are not many models available, so the price can be very high. It is a challenging price for a single-income family with 5 kids.

Another reason to fundraise is that we need a ceiling lift. My daughter is getting bigger (98 lbs), and I am small and had a history of cancer. Every day, I fear that I might not be able to get her out of bed as she needs to be.

She cannot be bed-bound since she has so much more desire to go out, drive around, and see things around. She understands a lot about her surroundings. She loves people around her. She loves attention. She is just like any other girl who would like to do something fun like going out to a movie or a park, etc.

Mostly, a ceiling lift costs about $25,000-$30,000, which is not even covered by our insurance or Medicaid for pediatrics. It covers elderly people but not pediatrics.

We really need your help! We appreciate your help greatly!

Love you and thank you!