Strength in Numbers: Recover & Rebuild

Our daughter has shown incredible bravery in the face of significant mental health challenges following a traumatic experience at school. While homeschooling provided a supportive environment for a time, her journey towards recovery is ongoing and requires continued care. We are fundraising to help us after being scammed after booking a restorative trip.

Furthermore, our family is deeply committed to supporting mental health initiatives. Therefore, any funds raised beyond what is needed for her immediate medical expenses and the trip will be donated to reputable mental health agencies dedicated to helping young people and families.

Backstory on trip: We are all moms trying to give our kiddos the best. Whether it be birthdays, special occasions or just what we never had. And when we can’t we feel like we failed them.

We decided everyone needed a restorative trip. Mental health doesn’t get talked about enough and how physically and emotionally draining it can be. We saved up to afford going back to Disney. (She loves Disney and even though she’s older she still is a kid at heart). Since we are a family of 6 we need a bigger room so we decided on renting disney vacation club points. I am part of numerous dvc rental groups and one person was advertising “distressed points”. The person advertising the distressed points was advertising at $ pp and was an int owner. There were comments from others so I quickly messaged the seller and told them I am ready to pay now.

They sent me a screenshot of the hotel confirmation and I sent the money. I went to add the reservation to my account and it said invalid. So I messaged the seller and waited. No response. I couldn’t contact them on fb anymore and since then they’ve been banned from the group. I paid via friends and family to save on fees. Unfortunately that ties my hands with dispute - but I still am disputing with my bank in addition to using our legal plan to hire a lawyer to see if they can help us in civil court.

In the meantime we have non refundable flights. We rebooked with someone legit (i tried to tag her to give her props) and they made sure that I knew they were legit. Room is booked and flight is done. The issue is essentially paying twice for a room but it still drained us and now we don’t have tickets.

I tried borrowing from family (who are older on fixed income), friends (let’s be real we all struggling - it took us awhile to save up).

Our plan was to surprise our oldest. But I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve cried so much since all this happened and cannot believe how stupid I could have been. People have judged me (rightfully so), made fun of me for being dumb and said there are more important things. And yes that is true. But when I think back to the phone call trying to get her admitted I said “she needs to come in, I don’t want to bury my daughter” - that to me is important and I want to do something really really special for her. Because I am so happy she is still here and I know she would be fine chilling at the resort the whole time but the last time she went was with my mom prior to her passing and all those positive memories I want to add on too.

So i am hoping other Disney adults can help us sprinkle some magic for this amazing survivor.