UPDATE: OUR FIGHT TO SAVE OUR FAMILY HOME HAS ENTERED A CRITICAL NEW CHAPTER

We have come too far to lose our family home now simply because we can't afford to keep fighting.

When I first started this GoFundMe, I was asking for help to save a property that has been in our family for more than 100 years. Before my grandfather died at 90, I promised him I would do everything I could to keep the property in our family.

I intend to keep that promise. But I can't do it alone.

Today, I'm asking for your help to fight for it.

I never imagined we'd be taking on a multi-billion-dollar insurance company just to save our beloved family property,

but here we are.

For more than a century, this property has been part of our family's story. My great-grandparents came from Germany in the 1920s and built their life here. My grandfather devoted his life to this community. Generations of our family grew up within these walls, including me.

State Farm's slogan is "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there."

For our family, that couldn't be further from the truth.

That slogan is BS!

They've been an absolute nightmare that could cost my family everything.

However, thanks to the incredible generosity of people who contributed to this fundraiser so far, we were able to finally hire an attorney. And our attorney has now filed a bad-faith lawsuit against State Farm in New Jersey.

This is a huge step forward. But it also means our fight is far from over.

After almost 18 months of bad faith tactics by State Farm, after a devastating pipe burst that destroyed our house, the family property remains uninhabitable. The expenses haven't stopped. It has fallen further into disrepair and vandalized. We are fighting to prevent the property from being completely lost while the case moves forward. And after everything our family has already endured, we simply don't have the resources to take on a massive insurance company alone.

That's why I'm asking for your help again.

The financial toll of this ordeal has become overwhelming.

If you've already contributed, please know that your generosity helped get us to this point. You helped give us the ability to fight back. I will never forget that.

If you're able to help again or are finding our story for the first time—your support right now will help us continue this legal fight, keep up with the mounting expenses, and give us a chance to save a piece of our family's history that can never be replaced.

And if you can't contribute, please share our story. Sharing this fundraiser with your friends, family and community is one of the most meaningful ways you can help us right now.

We aren't asking for anything more than what our family spent decades believing we already had: the protection we paid for, the chance to rebuild, and the ability to keep the home our family has loved for generations.

We are not giving up.

Please help us keep fighting.

THE BACKGROUND STORY:

Before my grandfather, Emil Setmayer, died in 2016 at the age of 90, I made him a promise.

I promised him we would never sell our family's property.

My family's roots in Paramus, New Jersey, go back more than a century.

In 1924, my great-grandparents arrived in America through Ellis Island. They were German Jews who left Germany after witnessing the rise of extremism firsthand. When Brownshirts attempted to recruit my great-uncle as a young boy, they knew it was time to leave. I used to have the Ellis Island records and ship manifest documenting their arrival. But they were among the many family heirlooms lost during this nightmare ordeal with State Farm.

They came to America seeking freedom, safety and the chance to build a better life for their family. And they did, from nothing.

Four generations later, that property remains the heart of our family's story.

My grandfather—known affectionately throughout Paramus as "Cap" or "Set"—was a World War II veteran who left to serve his country at just 17 years old.

He spent nearly 40 years with the Paramus Police Department, retiring as a Captain, and devoted more than 70 years to his community as a volunteer firefighter.

He loved Paramus. And so do I. It's part of who I am.

And Paramus loved him.

Every Fourth of July from 1947 until 2016, Gramps marched in the town's parade.

In his final year, he was no longer able to walk the route himself. So the Paramus Police Department wheeled him through the parade.

It was his final parade.

Ten days later, he died.

When he turned 80, the town temporarily renamed the street in front of Police Headquarters "Captain Emil Setmayer Way" in his honor. Today, his name remains memorialized among the officers who served the community he loved.

But some of my favorite memories of Gramps are much simpler.

Every year, he tended his garden and cared for the lilac bushes my great-grandparents planted nearly a century ago.

Every spring, those lilacs bloomed.

Gramps would cut bunches and sell them on the corner using nothing more than an honor-system bucket.

And they were always free for first responders.

That's the kind of man he was.

After he died, we continued bringing those family lilacs to his grave every spring.

Those lilacs still bloom today.

And I desperately want to make sure they keep blooming on our family's property for another generation.

His love of community, service, and country helped shape who I became. It's one of the reasons I've spent my career speaking out, standing on principle, and defending democracy and the values I believe in, even when doing so came with professional and financial consequences.

Maintaining that integrity has not always been easy.

But it's why asking for help now is so difficult and why this property means so much to me.

Then Disaster Struck

In March 2025, a burst pipe caused catastrophic damage to the house.

The home became uninhabitable.

We lost virtually everything inside.

Generations of family photographs.

Letters and documents from relatives who are long gone.

Precious 8mm films of my great-grandparents and my mother as a little girl.

My grandfather's World War II uniform and military records.

The accordion he played as a child.

My grandmother's dog-show ribbons.

My baby shoes.

Even the Ellis Island records and ship manifest documenting my great-grandparents' arrival in America.

Family heirlooms and keepsakes that connected us to people and moments we can never get back.

Some losses can be measured in dollars.

These cannot.

But we believed we had done what responsible families are told to do.

We had insurance.

We paid our premiums. We followed the rules. We trusted that if disaster ever struck, the company our family had faithfully paid would be there to help us rebuild.

Instead, more than a year later, our house remains uninhabitable—and now we are fighting State Farm in court.

"Like a Good Neighbor?"

State Farm's famous slogan says:

"Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there."

For our family, that couldn't feel further from the truth.

We've endured delays, underpayments, unanswered questions and obstacle after obstacle while our home has remained uninhabitable.

We've exhausted savings.

We've taken on mounting expenses.

We've watched costs continue to grow while the property that has been in our family for more than a century sits empty and deteriorating.

And now we face the possibility of losing it altogether.

The toll on our family hasn't just been financial.

During this ordeal, my mother has been hospitalized twice and has been dealing with serious health challenges.

My stepfather has also faced a major health crisis and is preparing for surgery.

At a time when our family should be focused on one another, we've instead been consumed by the fight to keep everything from falling apart.

A few months ago I shared an emotional video about what was happening.

Millions of people watched. Thousands reached out with encouragement and support. Many shared their own stories of battling insurance companies after disaster struck.

The kindness people showed our family meant more than I can ever express.

Now We're Fighting Back

When I originally created this GoFundMe, one of our most urgent needs was finding the resources to get legal help.

You helped us do that.

Because people contributed, shared our story and refused to look away, we were able to retain an attorney.

And as I mentioned at the top, our attorney has filed a bad-faith lawsuit against State Farm.

For the first time in this ordeal, we have the ability to fight back through the legal system.

But filing a lawsuit doesn't end this fight.

It begins another chapter.

We're taking on one of the largest insurance companies in America, with resources that dwarf anything our family could ever hope to have.

At the same time, we still have to protect the property, cover expenses associated with an uninhabitable home, support our family and pay the costs associated with pursuing this case.

We have come too far to lose our family's home now simply because we can't afford to keep fighting.

Why We Still Need to Reach $75,000

When we launched this fundraiser, we set an initial goal of $75,000.

We knew even then that $75,000 would not cover the full cost of everything our family faces. The ultimate financial impact of this ordeal could be far greater.

But we needed to start somewhere.

So far, you have helped us raise approximately $26,000.

That support has made a real difference.

It helped our family survive an extraordinarily difficult period.

And critically, it helped us hire the attorney who is now pursuing our bad-faith lawsuit against State Farm.

But we still have nearly $49,000 to go to reach that first $75,000 milestone—and our need has only grown.

Your support will help us:

• Continue funding legal and case-related expenses in our fight against State Farm

• Protect and maintain our family property while the lawsuit proceeds

• Help prevent the property from being lost while we fight

• Cover temporary housing, living and family expenses while our home remains uninhabitable

The $75,000 isn't the end of this journey. It's the immediate lifeline we need to keep going.

$26,000 helped get us into this fight. Reaching $75,000 can help us stay in it.

Why Asking for Help Is So Personal

There is another part of this story that is difficult for me to write about.

Many of you know me from television or from my work defending democracy and speaking out about the issues I believe matter to our country.

For years, I've made a career out of using my voice—even when doing so came at a cost.

I've walked away from professional opportunities rather than compromise my principles. I've spoken out against powerful people and institutions when I believed they were wrong. And I've tried to use whatever platform I have to stand up for people whose voices aren't always heard.

I'm accustomed to being the person doing the fighting.

I'm not accustomed to being the person asking for help.

And I know that because people see me on television, there may be an assumption that being a public figure means being wealthy or having the resources to absorb a catastrophe like this.

It doesn't.

I'm no longer paid for those TV appearances. Whenever you see me on TV, it's for free.

Choosing principle over professional security has come with very real financial consequences over the years.

I don't regret those choices.

They are part of who I am.

And much of that comes directly from grandfather (and my mom) whose family legacy I'm now fighting to save.

My grandfather taught me about service, integrity, loyalty and standing up for what you believe is right.

Those lessons helped shape the career I've built and the causes I've chosen to fight for.

Now I'm fighting for my own family.

There is something deeply humbling about publicly admitting that I can't do it alone.

But I'm also not willing to quietly surrender more than 100 years of my family's history simply because State Farm has vastly greater resources than we do.

I've spent much of my career warning about what happens when ordinary people feel powerless against powerful institutions.

Now my family, like thousands of others, knows what that feels like firsthand.

We paid for insurance because we believed it would protect us if the unthinkable happened.

The unthinkable happened.

And instead of rebuilding our home, we are now pursuing a bad-faith lawsuit against one of the largest insurance companies in America.

So yes, asking for help like this is hard for me.

But giving up would be harder.

This Is About More Than a House

I'm not ready to break that promise.

I'm going to keep fighting for as long as I possibly can.

But right now, I need help to do it.

Please Help Us Keep Fighting

If you contributed when we first launched this fundraiser, thank you.

Please know that your support did something tangible.

You helped us get legal representation.

You helped give our family the ability to fight back.

Now I'm asking you to help us keep going.

If you're able to contribute for the first time—or help us again—every dollar gives us more ability to protect the property, support our family and continue this legal fight.

And if you aren't able to contribute, please share this fundraiser.

Send it to a friend. Share it with your family. Post it on social media.

Help us get our story in front of people who believe families shouldn't be financially crushed while fighting an insurance company they trusted to protect them.

I know our family isn't alone. I've heard from so many people who have found themselves in similar battles after disaster struck.

For them, as for us, sometimes the disaster itself isn't the end of the nightmare.

It's what comes afterward.

More than 100 years of our family's history are tied to this little piece of Paramus.

We've already lost so much.

I refuse to give up without a fight.

Please help us fight State Farm, save our family home and keep a promise more than a century in the making.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for standing with us.

Tara Setmayer & Family