Aid Volunteers are now Flood Victims
Donation protected
Most reading this already know that Kristine Lauria and her 13 year old son Alessandro, have spent their lives helping people. They went to Indonesia after the tsunami where Kristine volunteered as an aid worker and midwife. They lived in Ghana where Kristine volunteered her midwifery services and helped set up a clinic. Every year they go to Senegal and Alessandro distributes mosquito nets and Kristine volunteers in the maternity clinics. Kristine volunteered in New Orleans after Katrina, doing relief work. Now they've been hit by the hardships of a natural disaster! Boulder's floods have made their house unlivable, and her landlord is giving her 30 days to vacate - leaving Kristine and Alessandro facing homelessness after all they have done for people.
Kristine is a single mother with no monetary support from her son's father, or from other family members. She believes in alternative education so drives her son 30 miles each way to a Montessori charter school so he can get the best, most innovative education possible. She believes children's hope and vision hold the key to the future of this planet.
And now, she and Alessandro are facing no place to live, and all her "disposable" income has gone into their gas tank to navigate all the road closures in their mountain community. This year the question isn't if they can do relief work in Africa, it is can they afford a place to life here, and will they have a roof over their heads and snow tires on Kristine's car.
Why do they need money? Well facing no place to live is expensive. Right now the rental market is INSANE because 11,000 people are displaced by the flooding. Rents here skyrocketed from their normally obscene prices, to even higher. She'll need first months rent, last months rent, plus a security deposit and a pet deposit (that is aprox. $4,500 if she finds a two bedroom for $1,500 a month - which is the going rate). She may have to stay in hotels while she is looking. She is renting a Uhaul (hundreds of dollars) and moving her things to storage ($130 a month). Gas alone is killing them because the direct route to her son's school washed away! Now having no home on top of all that they have been through is not fair. They've always helped everyone else, and it would be so great if on top of the stress of having no place to move, Kristine didn't have to keep checking their bank account to see if they can even afford to survive. And in my opinion, it would be great to see them even have a little extra so that after a long day of moving and stressing and packing, that they had enough money in the bank that Kristine felt confident enough in her future to be able to buy Alessandro an ice cream cone, or take him to the Nederland movie theater to enjoy themselves a bit. I sure hope everyone who loves these folks, or who have been helped by them at some point, can donate something to ease the stress and uncertainty of this horrible transition after the floods here.
Kristine is a single mother with no monetary support from her son's father, or from other family members. She believes in alternative education so drives her son 30 miles each way to a Montessori charter school so he can get the best, most innovative education possible. She believes children's hope and vision hold the key to the future of this planet.
And now, she and Alessandro are facing no place to live, and all her "disposable" income has gone into their gas tank to navigate all the road closures in their mountain community. This year the question isn't if they can do relief work in Africa, it is can they afford a place to life here, and will they have a roof over their heads and snow tires on Kristine's car.
Why do they need money? Well facing no place to live is expensive. Right now the rental market is INSANE because 11,000 people are displaced by the flooding. Rents here skyrocketed from their normally obscene prices, to even higher. She'll need first months rent, last months rent, plus a security deposit and a pet deposit (that is aprox. $4,500 if she finds a two bedroom for $1,500 a month - which is the going rate). She may have to stay in hotels while she is looking. She is renting a Uhaul (hundreds of dollars) and moving her things to storage ($130 a month). Gas alone is killing them because the direct route to her son's school washed away! Now having no home on top of all that they have been through is not fair. They've always helped everyone else, and it would be so great if on top of the stress of having no place to move, Kristine didn't have to keep checking their bank account to see if they can even afford to survive. And in my opinion, it would be great to see them even have a little extra so that after a long day of moving and stressing and packing, that they had enough money in the bank that Kristine felt confident enough in her future to be able to buy Alessandro an ice cream cone, or take him to the Nederland movie theater to enjoy themselves a bit. I sure hope everyone who loves these folks, or who have been helped by them at some point, can donate something to ease the stress and uncertainty of this horrible transition after the floods here.
Organizer
Emily Faolán Wolf
Organizer
Nederland, CO
