Moving to help my family- please help me bring my dog!

Hey friends! I’m trying to raise funds to help with my cross-country move to be with family. We’ve been struggling a lot in the past year with some complicated health conditions, especially my brother who needs assistance managing a traumatic brain injury and Epilepsy, among other things. We decided it would be MUCH easier to support each other if we were at least living in the same state again.

I've had to quit my job to be available to help with my brother's care, leaving me unable to work for the past 6 month. Once I'm in Hawaii I will be able to pick up my dream job as a youth sailing instructor once again, but I'm overwhelmed by this last financial hurdle of getting my plane ticket out there. Any donations are immensely appreciated!

A huge part of this moving process has been figuring out how to bring my Hawaii-native service dog, Matcha, with me, because there’s no way I'm going anywhere without her! I actually adopted her when I was stuck at my mom’s place during the COVID lockdown, meaning our relationship began just as I had begun working as a youth sailing instructor. She was a huge help for kids who were scared of the water, and now that word’s gotten out that we’re coming back, I have former students reaching out to ask me, “When is Coach Matcha going to get here?”.

Traveling with a dog is so much harder than it used to be, and means filing import and vet paperwork, buying a ticket, arranging a vet to meet me at the airport, and perhaps moving the ticket date to accommodate that. All told, I will need to raise about $1,500 to get the both of us back to Hawaii to look after family and get back to coaching.

Please share this if you can! I'm hoping we can save a little bit of a cushion to help recoup, recover, and get back on our feet as quickly as possible.

I'd also like to offer some of my art as a thank-you for donations! If you’re interested in getting a commission rather than donating here, please shoot me an email! I’m a traditional artist, specializing in animal art and pet portraits. This is a portrait I did of Matcha a few months ago:

Thank you for your consideration!