Nearly a year ago we abruptly lost our home and everything inside of it. Rather than grieving the loss and rebuilding our life, things have been largely on pause due to the long legal process that has unfolded because of the damage done to our home.

Why not just fix the house? For starters, we can’t. It will cost 6 figures to eliminate the lead dust that has contaminated the entire house and replace the items that will not be salvageable. If you’re like me prior to this crazy experience, you might know that lead is extremely dangerous for development. The danger is heightened for young children (check) and pregnant people (not check, yet). What you might NOT know is just how little lead it takes to make a home unsafe. To echo the analogy that was given to us by a lead-abatement expert, if you have 16 MILES, only a few INCHES can be lead. Beyond that, converted to parts-per-million, you are risking brain damage, kidney damage, reproductive damage and more. Some areas of our home are testing 100x the passable limits. And unfortunately, homeowner’s insurance policies have lead exclusions meaning our personal policy cannot cover the damage nor help cover the cost of living elsewhere in the meantime.

Can you imagine if this had happened to a family who did not have the capacity to fight back? It has been a grueling year of hiring experts, paying for test after test to prove the extent of the damage, and searching for a lawyer who could support us against a corporate contractor who has yet to take responsibility for putting our entire life on hold.

If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked over the past year “how can I help?” I wouldn’t have to make this GoFundMe. Okay… maybe not quite. But we have been VERY blessed to know that so many people in our communities want to support our family. Fielding those questions 10 months ago, 6 months ago, even 3 months ago – felt impossible. The cost of getting our house back is exorbitant.

As the year ‘anniversary’ approaches, we are ready to give our daughter a home again as a family. We are ready to have a bedroom again and not share living space with 3 other grown adults and a toddler. We are ready to have a safe-space, a peaceful space, and a space to call home while we continue fighting this legal battle – one that will likely last between 1 and 3 more years.

We are hoping to spread awareness of our story for myriad reasons. Going public is important to us to keep other families protected and educated on the negligence that is possible when it comes to home renovations. But we are to the point where we need help. We simply cannot bear the continued cost of paying our mortgage while also paying for a rental, furnishing the home, AND hopefully hiring qualified professionals to empty our belongings from the home and assess the exact damages at hand.

It is so hard for us to ask for help, and we should never have been put in a position where we had to ask for help. But we are ready to answer, “how can we help?”. This is how. You can share our story. Send this link personally to anyone you think may be able to lend even $20. We have run out of options and are opening our net far and wide. Your support will help us provide Audra with a different version of home, but a home, nonetheless. And we cannot express how much that means to us. THANK YOU for reading our story, sharing our story, and contributing if you have the means.