On Friday, January 24th, my family became victims of a home robbery. While my mom, sister, and I were away celebrating Lunar New Year at the Vietnamese church festival, our home was broken into. What began as a night filled with joy and laughter was abruptly shattered when we returned to find our house ransacked. The intruder(s) went through all of our rooms, stealing all the cash my mom had worked so hard to save, along with our family’s jewelry—items of immense cultural and sentimental value.

Our attackers had been secretly stalking my mom’s routine. As a single mother, she lives alone in our home while my sister and I are away at college. This invasion has left her shaken and deeply insecure in the house she has called home for 22 years. Every week, after finishing her shift working from home, my mom drives to our university to pick up my sister for the weekend so they can prepare for her shift at work the next day. The stalker(s) identified this pattern and strategically chose this time to strike, assuming we would be gone longer with Lunar New Year celebrations underway.

My mom, an immigrant from Vietnam, kept her savings at home—cash she worked tirelessly to put away for my sister’s and my futures. With everything gone, including over $40,000 worth of valuables, we feel as though our future has been stolen along with it. The police are investigating, but we don’t have high expectations for recovering what we’ve lost. Cash and jewelry are not sufficiently covered by our homeowner’s insurance.

We are setting a goal of $5,000, which will go toward replacing a broken window, installing a security system, and helping restore a portion of my mom’s savings. This support would help ease her burden as she works to rebuild after this traumatic experience.

If your parents are anything like mine, I encourage you to remind them not to keep large amounts of cash or valuables at home for extended periods and to consider installing security systems to protect their homes.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. We are incredibly grateful for any donations or shares on social media to help us through this difficult time.

~ Amanda Nguyen & family