We are a family of four living in a 90-year old adobe home in Chimayó, NM, that was constructed by my husband's grandparents. Our home has been through a lot in its life - from weekend project, to private residence, to nearly 30 years as a country inn that served all kinds of travelers and pilgrims. We moved in 2 years ago, just before our second son was born, and we hope to make a life and see our kids grow up here.

On August 29th, while we were on a weekend trip to Taos, the entire community of Chimayó, New Mexico and its surrounding areas experienced a tremendous flash flood due to the most ferocious rainstorm seen here in more than a decade. Water rushed down the hills with so much force that it pushed our front doors open and filled four of the six rooms in our house with 8-12 inches of rainwater. It also brought with it a thick, sticky mud full of debris, that covered all four rooms in 2-4 inches of wet sand and clay. We lost many possessions to the water, mold and mud, and there is now severe damage to the 90-year-old maple floors and adobe walls. We have been working hard the past few days to dig out, dry out, and save everything we can, and we are making good progress. But there is still a lot more work to do to save these rooms.

We are a young family - our sons are 4 1/2 and nearly 2 years old - and we each work two part-time jobs to have flexibility for them, living paycheck to paycheck on a disciplined budget as we pay off debt and seek to eventually put ourselves in a financial position to be able to cover all our expenses, save, and help others too. This house is our querencia, our asset and our dream for the future. We are asking for financial help to begin to restore the home, to replace some of our most needed and loved things, and to do all this without incurring more debt, which would erase the progress that we have made in our debt repayment project. If you prefer not to donate through Gofundme, please contact me on Venmo at @mwright1208.

Thank you for any donation you can make to our recovery - we appreciate each and every one, so much.

with gratitude,

Maggie, JJ, Uriel and Patricio

PS - In case you would like a run-down of how we are thinking to use these funds, our estimate breaks down like this:

$2500- Wages lost for the two of us during this initial emergency clean up, which are needed for groceries, gas, and timely student debt repayment in September. We will also need to take a couple of days to hopefully move back into the rooms at the end of the month.

$1000 - Equipment rental and labor assistance costs for wood floor sand and finish, and wood trim replacement in living room and bedroom

$3000 - Materials and labor assistance costs to tear up warped flooring and cut into adobe north wall, rebuild northwest corner foundation, buy and replace flooring on 1/3 of north wall, remove and repair rotted dry wall in laundry room, and repaint laundry room.

$500 - Professional mold inspection and assessment of long-term mold damage to all rooms

$500 - For items we already need to buy or replace quickly (laptop charger and cord, ruined library books, cleaning supplies, mops and industrial bucket)