Raising money to support Mary

Support disability justice advocate Mary, whose health has deteriorated. She needs treatment, adaptive furniture, and mobility equipment. For years, Mary has dedicated her unpaid time to helping thousands secure funding, advice, and support. Now her own health has worsened she needs support from us.

We are asking for help with funding relating to Mary’s worsening health and loss of mobility that have proven impossible to get through the NHS, DWP or charities. If you know Mary you will know that she has fought with every fibre of her being for over a decade to try to access appropriate treatments and services and all it’s done is worsen her health.

Mary has dedicated her life to helping others, either in her neighbourhood, community or around the world, her passion for community care is unusual and we want to enable her to continue to do that work but at the moment she is frustrated by how limited she is in what she can do for others.

We’ve sat down with her to help figure out what can be done to improve her quality of life, make her home safer and help with mobility, especially in warmer weather which is now particularly challenging as her autoimmune disease worsens.

We’ve talked for over a year about how much to disclose about Mary’s conditions and what exactly she needs help funding with at this point in her disease but ultimately decided that it was safest and most in line with our values to allow Mary as much privacy and dignity as possible whilst accessing resources. Disabled people are routinely stripped of all privacy and dignity and it’s important to counter that as often as we can.

Many people reading this will be familiar with the impossible funding and healthcare barriers that people like Mary face, stuck between punitive and unreliable DWP arrangements and an NHS that was never designed to care for complexly chronically ill patients.

Mary is hopeful and positive about the increased freedom and safety that this fundraiser could offer, and is excited to share updates as her circumstances improve.

Small boundary request, if you know personal or private information about Mary’s circumstances please don’t share them here in the fundraiser comments ❤️

Mary welcomes private messages of support instead.

Thank you so much for reading