This is a fundraiser for my friend Hope (not her real name), a mom who is fighting for her children's lives. She is a dear friend, talented educator and writer, and beautiful and committed mother to a school-aged daughter and son. She's been fighting against all odds to protect them. 

At the end of August, there was a trial for custody of the children. Despite ample evidence of abuse, neglect, and chronic maltreatment of the children by the father, and despite medical and mental health records, he was unjustly and unsafely given full custody. Hope was silenced and punished in a myriad of ways (including financially) for trying to help them. She has proof of mishandling of evidence that occurred during the trial, leading to the current order.

Both children are in crisis while living with their father. They've both been diagnosed with PTSD. Within the last month, the father threatened the daughter with physical violence, leading her to call the police for help. They are now living 6 hours away from where their mother currently lives. She has nurtured, nourished, and educated these children for their entire lives until this moment, and is now only allowed to see them the first weekend of every month and speak to them 15 minutes each.

Due to the order, she will now have to travel to Ohio, over 6 hours away, to see her children for the only weekend time the order allows. She cannot miss these visits. They are trying to sever these children from the love and support they've had from their mother all of their lives. They need her now more than ever. And we need to see to it that they have her. The traveling and lodging comes at a huge financial cost and she has no money to pay it. The court knew this. And they did it anyway. We need to raise the money immediately to cover the upcoming trip for her to see the children and enact our plan to eliminate this horrendous expense for her going forward. The immediate goal amount for the trip is $800 - gas, food, hotel. For our more permanent plan that we need to move quickly on to help both the visitation expense and this mom - $10,000. 

We only have 30 days from the original order to file an appeal - that leaves us with LESS THAN 2 WEEKS. For that, we urgently need $2500 to cover some of the legal fees.

There are other significant funds that need to be raised (legal fees, expenses associated with keeping her children safe, treatment of PTSD, etc), but for the safety of the mother and children, we cannot disclose all the details.

There have been some issues with keeping the original GoFundMe going, as the children's father has come after it in various ways, which is why we need everyone's help to meet the fundraising goals quickly, spread the word, and give whatever you can no matter how small.

Your support means helping her keep her kids safe from their abuser, so these two beautiful children can heal and grow into functional, healthy, happy adults.