Help Nataly and Heather get a Well!

Welcome to our GoFund me page! We are Heather and Nataly.

Nataly is a first generation Dominican/Peruvian-American.

I am a Mexican/Lebanese-American.

We are artists and teachers trying to plant some roots and make a home for ourselves, but we need a little help. Will you stand with us and support us in our healing, empowerment and realization of this dream ?

We need to save at least $75,000 to complete our land and home project. But for now, we need to raise enough money to get access to water, and our well is currently estimated at $20,732.

We’ll never forget the way she looked at us, that property manager in Brooklyn who gasped in horror when we told her our combined income.

“ToGETHAH?” she scoffed, her lips pursed, her head shaking. “Oh no. You don’t even qualify!”

As we walked to the train that afternoon, our eyes glued to the cracked sidewalk, an unspoken shame passed between us. We don’t even qualify. Maybe we never would.

That’s how we’ve felt our entire lives.

Nataly grew up in severe poverty, in the projects with four other siblings and a single immigrant mother. I grew up being evicted from one home to another with a con artist family who eventually left me in crippling debt. In the 15 years we’ve been together, Nataly and I have worked so hard to dig ourselves out of poverty and debt, to create a home with each other. All we’ve ever wanted is a safe and permanent place to do this.

As working women of color, we’ve hustled. We’ve saved. We’ve looked. We’ve applied. We’ve dreamed. We’ve applied again. But no matter how hard we work or try, we just don’t qualify. We don’t make enough to qualify for loans, and we make just barely too much to qualify for low income assistance.

Until recently! Last year, our dear friends, people who believe in equity over personal wealth, who value community over individualism, gifted us both land, and the means to begin the construction of a home site.

With the support of our friends, we now have the privilege of tending and living in relationship with ancestral and unceded Abenaki land here in our beloved Guilford, VT. As queer women of color we don’t feel safe and welcome everywhere. But here, we have found a sense of belonging.

Nataly and I are deeply committed to our community. I teach music in local schools, and Nataly works at a therapeutic school for boys. We now have a chance to build a refuge here, our forever home.

With the gifted funds, we’ve gotten our home site cleared, put in a driveway, a basement, and secured a house kit. And over the summer, Nataly and I built a little 110 sq ft. off-grid cabin and outhouse (with help from some of our badass women friends!) and we moved out of our cozy apartment to save on rent.

How did we know how to build a cabin, you ask? We didn’t ! We are people who have had to figure things out on our own, and when we put our minds to something, we do it. Thanks to YouTube, Nataly’s math and science smarts, and my brawn ; ), we learned how to level, square, use various power tools, install a wood stove and more. (We can admit it—we are proud of ourselves!)

Right now, we’re roughing it in the woods, lugging water jugs and a solar generator every few days, showering at friends’ homes when we can. We spend our weekends trying to build our permanent home.

This is where you come in!

We are estimating we will need to save at least $75,000 to complete our modest 1,100 square foot home.

But for now, we need to raise enough money to get access to water and our well is currently estimated at $20,732.

Right after Christmas, the well company came to drill our well. Nobody expected there to be an issue finding water, but, of course, they drilled 460 ft into the ground without hitting any. After 250 ft, the price goes up and now they have to hydrofracture. What we expected to owe basically doubled and we don’t have the funds to cover it.

This past year, we’ve been learning how to ask for help. How to value community without being ashamed of not having all the answers ourselves. Our society seems to discourage us from lifting each other up, but lifting each other up is pretty much the ONLY way us humans get to survive AND thrive! Together!

We know you’re all struggling, and that in the grand scheme of things, we are SO lucky to have any opportunities at all. But our friends convinced us to try a go-fund me, so here we are, asking for help, and valuing community over the fear of not qualifying, of our poverty being your burden.

Thank you so much for reading this far, and if you feel inclined to help, well—Thank you!!