Mama's Secret Mission-Possible Home Makeover

Hi Friends! My name is Destini, and I’m fundraising for my mother! “Mama” is what my daughters, Naomi and Oliva, call her.

 

To keep it simple, Mama’s home needs some work… some minor and some major. The girls and I have decided to give Mama a much-needed home makeover, but we need a little help. What started off in our minds as a small project has turned out to be a little bigger than we expected.

 

You see, by the summer of 2022, Mama will have lived in her house for 30 years! I don’t know if when she moved into her newly built 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1,044 square foot home back in 1992, she thought it would be her “forever home”. However, at this point, we definitely know she’s not going anywhere. And naturally, over time things begin to wear and tear. That’s exactly what has happened to Mama’s house. It has begun to show its age, a little like Mama. Some of the kitchen cabinets are falling apart, the bathroom floors are broken up and the carpet is on its last thread… just to name a few.

 

When Mama moved into the house in 1992, she was a single-mom raising 2 kids with little financial help. She often worked 2-3 jobs to provide for my brother and I. But not only was she working to care for us, she often extended that care and help to others. Over the years, she has helped friends and family financially, and has even opened her home as a place for people to stay when they needed a place to live.

 

Growing up a country girl with 6 brothers and sisters, Mama learned the importance of not wasting the things she had or had been given. That’s a great lesson to learn in life! However, over the years, as her friends or family would offer to give her things, she would accept to show her appreciation. Mama also has tendency to worry about “hard times”, so in the past, she liked to stock up on things that she found on sale at the nearest Eckerd drug store. Today she may stock up at the nearest Lidl. All this has resulted in her collecting all sorts of things that began to pile up in her small home. And this is just one of the reasons why Mama needs a home makeover. She has too much stuff in a small aging home. Many of those things just need a new home like the Goodwill store.

 

Now one of the biggest reasons why Mama needs a home make-over is her “grandbabies”. Mama loves her granddaughter’s Naomi (5 years old) and Olivia (3 years old)! They truly bring her so much joy, and it brings a smile to my face to see them together playing, dancing and just sharing their love. However, right now, Mama’s home is not kid-friendly AT ALL and in some ways, not safe. She tried to create a play space for the girls in my old bedroom, but that resulted in her moving most of the things that were in there into the smallest bedroom in the house. That’s the room that actually had a bed in it (watch the video). Now that bedroom isn’t very functional at all. We can barely walk in it. I say all this, just to show the efforts Mama has made to be a good grandma to her only two grandchildren.

 

Now this brings me to the final thing I want to share with you. Mama is doing the best she can. She sometimes suffers from depression and gets easily anxious and overwhelmed. I’m not a doctor, but I think that triggers her to do some of the things she does such as storing unnecessary things as a way to feel secure. But the more she stores, the more overwhelmed she gets when her living environment isn’t at its best. And I think this creates a cycle of anxious buying and storing. Right now, Mama spends most of her time at home, because she retired in September of 2019 right before Covid-19 hit. That was the best thing for her, because she WOULD NOT have done well mentally working during the pandemic. However, that means she’s now home more in a house that is showing its age, needing repairs and cluttered. This isn’t the home I remember growing up in, and I really don’t want it to be the home my girls remember their Mama living in either.

 

I firmly believe that with a little TLC and a lot of hard work, we can transform this house into a home that is welcoming, light and one that helps keep Mama’s spirit feeling good.

 

I live in Maryland, and the girls and I are visiting her in North Carolina for the remainder of December. With our visit, I have begun to help her start decluttering and donating some items. She has agreed to let me do a little home-makeover, but she thinks I’m just going to buy her a new sofa and tidy up the place. She has agreed to go back to Maryland with the girls for a few days at the end of the month so that I can work on the house. She has no clue that I want to fix all the things that need repair in the home and update it so that it is functional and beautiful for her for the rest of her years.

 

So… the girls and I kindly ask that you help us with Mama’s Mission-Possible Makeover. Any donation amount will help and be appreciated! Your help with this project will make a huge difference in what I can do for my mother. I KNOW she will be overwhelmed with joy when she sees a renovated, truly functional home. Thanks so much for considering our Mama’s cause and contributing to this project!

 

Sincerely,

Naomi, Olivia and Destini