Help give my family a fresh start and healing!

Hi there!
My name is Megan and I'm so grateful you're here, reading my family's story, and helping us create a new life for my beautiful mom and sister! We've got BIG dreams for them, and are so hopeful "with a little help from our friends", we can achieve and even surpass them! =)

My mom, Jill, and my sister, Elena, live in rural Dubuque, Iowa. They have lived in their cozy single-wide mobile home since 2004 and due to health concerns and ever-changing needs for the both of them, they have an **urgent** need to move before another difficult Iowa winter. They have created a beautiful life, but face many challenges that the average family does not.

My sister is an amazing, witty, bright, 25 year old woman. She was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at a very young age, after surviving a premature birth. She was born nearly 3 months premature, only weighing 1lb 6.5oz's , and defying doctors odds and expectations from day 1.Many years later, her doctors discovered she experienced "agenesis of the corpus callosum" - defined as the absence and lack of proper and complete formation of the connecting tissue between the two hemispheres of her brain that allow the two sides to communicate.  She is brilliantly thoughtful, eloquently spoken, and truly rocks the world of everyone that meets her. She is funny, witty, sharp, and sincerely one of the most loving and genuine souls you'd be so lucky to meet in your life. She has been my hero since birth.
My mom, Jill, is an incredible, beautiful, resilient woman - the wise mother of 4: Elizabeth, Lucas, Elena, and I. She has many loving relatives including her dear sister Holly (w/ husband, Mike), many siblings, granddaughters/sons, and so many that love and admire her. Within the last few years, she has begun to experience health challenges including a diagnosis of advanced-stage COPD, bouts of Pneumonia, respiratory infections, and a significant loss of physical strength. 

In 2009, after many years of marriage, Elena's father quickly disappeared from our lives and from Elena and our mom's support system. He relocated to New York to be with his new family and has lost contact with Elena and has not contributed to any aspect of her care in over 10 years. Due to the sudden and difficult life change, my mom has rose to the challenge and assumed the role as Elena's primary physical, emotional, mental, and financial caregiver, as well as serving as her advocate, benefit coordinator (alongside Elena's incredible medical and services teams), and a multitude of other roles to ensure Elena is free to live and thrive in a happy, healthy, and accessible environment.
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Elena's physical cares requiring assistance include (but not limited to):
Using the restroom and all personal cares - toothbrushing, hair-brushing, bathing, wiping, etc.
Assistance with eating and drinking - preparation of meals, ingredients, as well as helping her eat most meals (some finger foods she can eat unassisted).
Assistance with house duties - laundry, sweeping/mopping/vacuuming, lawn care, snow/ice removal.
Assistance with mobility - Elena cannot drive a vehicle and needs regular access to an accessible van with a lift/ramp (ideally electric for safety concerns).
Assistance with transfers - Elena needs sturdy and reliable assistance with transferring from her wheelchair to her bathroom equipment and to/from her bed. *She can often and partially bear her own weight but needs a great deal of physical assistance to ensure her safety from one place to another.
Assistance dressing/undressing and choosing outfits/accessories.
Assistance with medical decisions, appointments, administering medications, understanding dosages etc.
Companionship - presence, friendship, love, and compassion.
Assistance with understanding legalities, her rights, her benefits awarded by various wavers and programs, etc.
Accessible housing - wide doors, wide hallways, open floor plan to accommodate various large pieces of adaptive equipment to make her cares and any bit of independence, possible.
Ensuring she maintains her friendships and relationships outside of the home - via the internet and her devices.
Community involvement and activity inclusion - Elena is a social butterfly and loves the outdoors. She needs resources to allow her essential time away from home to explore the world around her.
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Over the last couple of years, it has become increasingly difficult to now impossible for our mom to complete physical transfers with Elena and provide the level of regular and routine Elena's needs require. Our eldest sister, Liz, and our aunt Holly (mom's sister), Holly have tremendously stepped in and help alleviate the strain and stress of the physical transfers and house work on our loved ones. They both work full-time+ jobs, have families and busy lives to keep running, and are providing intensive cares for Elena regularly and are now needing additional care-givers to complete the nearly round-the-clock cares that both my mom and Elena require.

Within the last couple of years, my mom has had a handful of emergency room runs and extended hospital stays, which have resulted in nearly every inch of her body being tested for disease, cancer, and dysfunction to find the source of her waining health and strength levels. She now has multiple in-home nurses vists per week in addition track her vitals and needs as well as physical therapists that are helping her regain strength, gain weight, and assist her rehabilitation towards living her most vibrant life possible.

My mom and Elena urgently need to move into a new home, closer to Dubuque's growing hub of delivery services, in-home care providers, and safety from the elements (her current home is exposed to frequent tornados/lightening/and high wind damage). Each time they have to evacuate, it is exhausting and dangerous for my mom to maneuver Elena into their van and hurry to the closest shelter nearly 15 minutes closer to town.

With funds raised and collected from our communities, family, friends, and kind strangers, my mom and Elena will be able to tremendously improve their lives and their mental well-beings.  
$1,000-$1,500 will support their move including; a deposit, moving truck/movers, packing supplies, disposal services, and cleaning costs.
$1,500-$5,000 would support all above mentioned topics and would include: following month's rent/utilities/services covered in-full, peace from worrying about heating and food bills during Iowa's frigid and long winters, supplies for daily living, and basic adaptive equipment to simply Elena's daily cares.
$5,000-$10,000 would support all above mentioned and would also include: ability to repair/save for an adaptive and accessibility van that is safe and sound for them to commute in, give them absolute peace of mind and ease that they are
SUPPORTED and can finally live free of "fight or flight" and enjoy life with little stress.

100% of funds raised will be given directly to my mom and Elena to fund their first move in over 15 years and to get them set up for success, comfort, and ease!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kindness and for reading our story. Even $1-$5 adds up quickly and all donations and suggestions for resources in IA would be greatly appreciated.  Also.. **Please share on your pages and platforms** - every share helps them get closer to their dreams and goals!!

Please contact Megan  for more information, if you have connections or suggestions for resources, loving and kind words to pass along to my family, or anything you'd like to offer are beyond appreciated.

Warmly,
Meg, Elena, Jill, Liz, Lucas, Holly and our beloved families and loved ones <3