I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE
Donation protected
Over the years, I have helped many of you, in one way or another. Now I am asking for your help. All my life I have been self-reliant. So this is very hard for me to do.
Here is my story:
Upon graduation from High School, my dream was to move from NY City to Los Angeles to start working my way up in the field of movie and/or TV production. However, it was much more important than me and my older brother get an apartment and move my mother in with us to get her out of a situation where my alcoholic father was constantly beating her. They could not afford a divorce, so this needed to be done and I put my primary dream away.
However I did manage to get a job in The United Artists Pictures mail room and then continued for over 35 years working for various companies, including 9 years at United Artists, 16 years at Columbia Pictures, and various amounts of times at Allied Artists Pictures, Lorimar Pictures, Hemdale Releasing, Gramercy Pictures and Miramax Films. All in movie distribution.
In the year 2000, when I was out of work after my last position, my brother who I still lived with, long after my mother passed away, needed major open heart surgery to replace a valve and fix a hole in his heart that he had since birth. After this surgery, he would need someone with him around the clock. So my choice was a live-in nurse (which we could not afford) or a nursing home or since I was not able to find a new job in a year of looking one, me staying home taking care of him. I felt it was my duty to take care of him at home.
I had put away a sizable amount of money for my retirement in which I planned to do some traveling beyond what I did while working which included a dozen or so vacation trips and work trips to Los Angeles. I ended up using this money to stay home with my brother. Later on, he needed hip replacement surgery, which made his condition even worse. Then he came down with bladder cancer. During the treatment for this last ailment in the hospital, he contracted a bacterial infection and passed away. He had some of his retirement money left which came to me. It enabled me to live on it, with the help of Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers which paid for my monthly health insurance, which at that time was $1000 a month, until I was 65 and was able to get Medicare. I also, at age 62 got my Social Security and my IATSE union pension, both at reduced amounts. By that time any money I had inherited was gone. This proved not enough for me to live on and forced me to file bankruptcy about 7 years ago.
Since then with costs keep going up and my pension and Social Security basically staying the same, in order to survive I needed to use several credit cards, which I have now maxed out. Also 7 years ago I was able to receive $99 in food stamps. Unfortunately, every year when my Social Security went up or the amount of earnings to qualify went up, my food stamps were constantly lowered to where it is now at ZERO. So that made me get and use more credit cards to pay for food. My doctor wants me to eat healthier food but with no food stamps, no extra money and no credit left, I can only afford the cheapest unhealthiest foods. And thus put me in the position I am now in of debt in excess of $15,000 and no way anymore to pay even minimums on many of the cards.
I have tried to get help from organizations but unfortunately, I fall in the middle, I make too much money to get their assistance but too little money to survive on and they all rejected helping me. Filing bankruptcy again is on the horizon in a year but I need to survive that year first. Thus my coming to you for financial assistance. Believe me, I would really prefer being on the giving end and not on the needing end and this is totally embarrassing for me to do at all since I have never asked anyone for help before and have always been quite self-sufficient and the person who helped others.
I spend most of my days now watching TV and going on social media at home. The only things I can afford to do outside are my daily walks in my neighborhood and going to my movies in nearby theaters which is for free, courtesy of The WILL ROGERS GOLDEN MOVIE PASS which is good for the rest of my life at all major theater circuit theaters in the Country. Thus the movie reviews I post. But as my regular review followers may realize I no longer go to movies daily but on the average once a week since I can only afford to go to movies I can walk to at theatres that take my pass and that limits me to what I can see and rules out most limited release indie movies which were my favorite kind of movie to see in the past.
That is my story. Thank you for reading it and thank you for any assistance you can give to me at this time.
If you have any questions you can contact me directly on Facebook Messenger or Twitter DM or through a message on GOFUNDME.
Here is my story:
Upon graduation from High School, my dream was to move from NY City to Los Angeles to start working my way up in the field of movie and/or TV production. However, it was much more important than me and my older brother get an apartment and move my mother in with us to get her out of a situation where my alcoholic father was constantly beating her. They could not afford a divorce, so this needed to be done and I put my primary dream away.
However I did manage to get a job in The United Artists Pictures mail room and then continued for over 35 years working for various companies, including 9 years at United Artists, 16 years at Columbia Pictures, and various amounts of times at Allied Artists Pictures, Lorimar Pictures, Hemdale Releasing, Gramercy Pictures and Miramax Films. All in movie distribution.
In the year 2000, when I was out of work after my last position, my brother who I still lived with, long after my mother passed away, needed major open heart surgery to replace a valve and fix a hole in his heart that he had since birth. After this surgery, he would need someone with him around the clock. So my choice was a live-in nurse (which we could not afford) or a nursing home or since I was not able to find a new job in a year of looking one, me staying home taking care of him. I felt it was my duty to take care of him at home.
I had put away a sizable amount of money for my retirement in which I planned to do some traveling beyond what I did while working which included a dozen or so vacation trips and work trips to Los Angeles. I ended up using this money to stay home with my brother. Later on, he needed hip replacement surgery, which made his condition even worse. Then he came down with bladder cancer. During the treatment for this last ailment in the hospital, he contracted a bacterial infection and passed away. He had some of his retirement money left which came to me. It enabled me to live on it, with the help of Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers which paid for my monthly health insurance, which at that time was $1000 a month, until I was 65 and was able to get Medicare. I also, at age 62 got my Social Security and my IATSE union pension, both at reduced amounts. By that time any money I had inherited was gone. This proved not enough for me to live on and forced me to file bankruptcy about 7 years ago.
Since then with costs keep going up and my pension and Social Security basically staying the same, in order to survive I needed to use several credit cards, which I have now maxed out. Also 7 years ago I was able to receive $99 in food stamps. Unfortunately, every year when my Social Security went up or the amount of earnings to qualify went up, my food stamps were constantly lowered to where it is now at ZERO. So that made me get and use more credit cards to pay for food. My doctor wants me to eat healthier food but with no food stamps, no extra money and no credit left, I can only afford the cheapest unhealthiest foods. And thus put me in the position I am now in of debt in excess of $15,000 and no way anymore to pay even minimums on many of the cards.
I have tried to get help from organizations but unfortunately, I fall in the middle, I make too much money to get their assistance but too little money to survive on and they all rejected helping me. Filing bankruptcy again is on the horizon in a year but I need to survive that year first. Thus my coming to you for financial assistance. Believe me, I would really prefer being on the giving end and not on the needing end and this is totally embarrassing for me to do at all since I have never asked anyone for help before and have always been quite self-sufficient and the person who helped others.
I spend most of my days now watching TV and going on social media at home. The only things I can afford to do outside are my daily walks in my neighborhood and going to my movies in nearby theaters which is for free, courtesy of The WILL ROGERS GOLDEN MOVIE PASS which is good for the rest of my life at all major theater circuit theaters in the Country. Thus the movie reviews I post. But as my regular review followers may realize I no longer go to movies daily but on the average once a week since I can only afford to go to movies I can walk to at theatres that take my pass and that limits me to what I can see and rules out most limited release indie movies which were my favorite kind of movie to see in the past.
That is my story. Thank you for reading it and thank you for any assistance you can give to me at this time.
If you have any questions you can contact me directly on Facebook Messenger or Twitter DM or through a message on GOFUNDME.
Organizer
Steve Abraham
Organizer
Rego Park, NY
