Get Kari's Life Out of Florida!

Hello everyone. After over ten years of bouncing around the country trying to find stable housing, I have finally made it back to the Pacific Northwest, which is where my heart has always been. Unfortunately, 75% of my life is still in Florida, which is where I lived previously, and at the rate things are going, I stand to lose it forever.

My housing in Florida was coming to an abrupt end and, since I hated it there anyway, I made plans to get back to the PNW, where I'd wanted to be for most of the time I was away. I packed most of my life into a storage pod to ship out west, since it was the most cost-effective option over driving a van cross-country. Sadly, my plans were stymied for six weeks longer than I'd anticipated, for reasons completely out of my control, and so all of my savings got eaten up staying in a hotel because I no longer had a place to actually live, so most of my life is still in that storage pod, sitting in northwest Florida, waiting for shipment.

I can't stress to you enough how heartbroken this has left me. Almost all of my art supplies, most of my physical books and photos, and a great deal of my memories are in this storage pod, and the cost to keep them there is significantly higher than it would cost to keep them in a standard storage unit. If this keeps on, I may never be able to retrieve these items. I will never be able to build up my art supplies to this degree again. I will never get those photos and books and other sentimental items back. I will lose most of the things that I've spent my life working to collect and keep, including almost my entire inventory of already made art. My plan had been to bring everything with me and sell off the rest of that inventory to fund my housing here in Oregon until I could get a job, but that obviously didn't happen. There was no way I could fit it all in my car when I drove out here--I have a compact car, it barely fit me, my cats, and the bare essentials. And so in storage it stayed when I left the state, and there it has stayed ever since.

Now I'm in financial straits again, and I've been injured and physically cannot work. The inventory and art/crafting supplies in that storage pod could make or break everything for me right now, and I have no way to get to it.

There are boxes and boxes of handmade jewelry, beads, resin charms and clay sculptures, and veritable miles of ribbon for making kanzashi, as well as fabric, jewelry hardware, and probably several thousand dollars' worth of investment in my art. If I lose it, I will never recover, and any and all future plans to pursue physical art will likely be crushed.

The cost to have the storage pod shipped from Florida to Oregon is about $2,000 after fees [right now; the cost could go up at any time, unfortunately], and it will likely take me another month or two to go through everything and move it to a more cost-effective storage location, since I don't have the space to keep where I live now. I rent a single room, and I have not been afforded any storage space outside that bedroom where I sleep. In addition, my personal vehicle is too small to move any large items, and the injury I've sustained means I'll need help as well, so in order to really be able to get my life back on any sort of track, I'll need to be able to rent a larger vehicle, and pay for some moving help to get the things from the pod to a permanent storage unit. The goal is an overshot to help me bridge the gap between now and actually being able to sell the inventory and make more, but even just having access to the items in the pod again would be life-changing for me right now.

If I can get this storage unit sent out to me, I'll at least get some of my livelihood back. Right now, I don't even have the supplies to offer anything for sale, and I don't have the money to try and rebuild. With what's in this storage pod, I'd have ready-made inventory that I could sell online and at local markets, and it would really go a long way to getting my feet back under me.

Please help me out if you can! Every bit helps, and even if I don't reach the full amount that will get me a truck and moving help, it will at least give me access to these things I am in danger of losing. Here is some of the art that I've made over the years that I will never be able to make again if I lose all my supplies:

I'd be more than happy to offer anyone who donates $5 or more a free item from my ko-fi store once I am able to get my things and can update it with the available inventory I have in storage! You can view the existing ko-fi store here!