Help Ken and Maggie Stay Afloat

The last 18+ months have been incredibly hard for the Radd family. We have faced housing insecurity, employment and financial insecurity, health emergencies, loss of a beloved pet... The list goes on and on.

In May, on the precipice of having to leave our home of 15 years for a beautiful but much more costly (read: market-priced) housing option, Ken required emergency surgery. In July, just one month after the big move, while Ken was on a WARN notice for impending layoffs at his company, Maggie was informed that her position had been eliminated.

Needless to say, the nest egg of a non-profit worker is never particularly robust, and it was significantly drained by the need to move house. Full-time employment opportunities in the cultural sector were few and far between before the recent executive orders all but eliminated the federal granting agencies that fund museums. Meaning that cultural job boards are essentially a no man's land, even for someone with Maggie's 30-year experience in the arts.

We've budgeted wisely, pinched every penny since July, and taken on freelance work whenever the opportunity strikes, but it isn't enough to keep afloat. Unemployment has run out, and job application after job application have unfortunately not yielded a solution to the incredibly difficult position we find ourselves in.

On top of all of this was the loss of our sweet Scarlett, the 11-year-old grumpy queen who ruled our lives. Devastated does not begin to cover it.

It is impossibly hard out there right now. For everyone! We are mortified to have to ask for help but options are limited so we approach hat in hand asking for your generosity if you are able and so inclined.