My wife and I are talented creative people with decades of experience creating movies, web development, graphic design, fine art, running businesses, and various forms of art. We are both kind and giving people. We both hate asking for anything. We had been extremely lucky when it came to money.

During the pandemic we lost our jobs and used the resources we had to move back to the east coast. It turned out to be one of the best decisions we’ve made. Within a few months of moving close to my mother she got ill. Being unemployed and in the midst of the pandemic I was able to spend my mother’s last three months with her. It was about as good of an ending as one could have with a parent. I gave her hugs every day. We binge watched her first show (Grace and Frankie). We took walks. We talked. I got to cook for her. When she passed it hurt a lot, but I felt at peace with it due to that time we had together.

After that I went home and my wife and I started our own business. We put everything we had into it. Time, energy, and money. We had bought a house too big, but necessary for the business and we put together something that I will forever be proud of.

As we worked tirelessly to make the business succeed our accounts emptied out. We had nothing left and we had to sell our dream home. We made the heart wrenching decision to shut down the business. We found the best jobs we could find.

It’s been a few years now. Debt has stacked up. We both have medical conditions that require expensive insurance. Our new home needs some work and our current income just won’t cover it. We also now find ourselves without a working vehicle. The car we got when my mother passed needs over $8k of repair, and our 16 year old car was likely just totaled after my wife was in an accident this past weekend.

We apply to new jobs nearly every day, but like a lot of people we get no responses despite our experience and talent. We’ve seen and met with financial advisors and debt counselors and received so much advice. We know what we need to do, it simply isn’t there.

We don’t expect much, but we can’t continue on the way we have. We are humbled by the situation we find ourselves in. We hope that we can find better jobs soon. Until then we ask for whatever you can give. If you know of any job opportunities we would be happy for that too.

With sincerest gratitude