Hi, we’re the Smiths — a loving family of four doing our best to make it through a tough season. I’m Keith, a UPS driver who is a hard-working, easy-going dad of two amazing boys and a former Boy Scout. I love what I do, I get to make someone’s day by delivering the package they’ve been waiting for, and I get to meet and give lots of pets to the many dogs on my route. In August of 2025, I was injured on the job and required shoulder surgery that left me unable to work, and I am now going through a 6-month recovery process until I can work again. Despite our efforts, we’ve fallen behind on rent and bills, and we need your help. My wife Jess, who had recently lost her job due to ongoing health issues, has been doing everything she can to hold us together, while caring for our two boys and trying to maintain her own mental and physical health journey. Our youngest son is 7 and an energetic, fun-loving kiddo who is on the autism spectrum and recently diagnosed with ADHD, loves to spend time with family, talking for hours about his special interests, especially Sonic. And our 13-year-old son. A passionate, intelligent, talented soccer player with aspirations of going pro, who wears his heart on his sleeve.

While my first workers’ comp check took 6 weeks to come, and my income was slashed almost in half, we have tried our best to stay afloat, but found it very difficult to not only make ends meet, but also get us out of the hole we found ourselves in, all because of a work-related injury that was out of my control. We are now facing our vehicles being repossessed, our phones getting shut off, and getting evicted from our apartment, among other challenges, and we need a little help. We’ve lived in our apartment for nearly eight years, but now we are facing eviction and homelessness with nowhere else to go. We have tried to explain our situation to the apartment complex to no avail. We are good people who just found ourselves in a dire situation until I can get back to work. The only way I know how to fix this and help my family is by working as hard as I can, but I literally cannot work until my shoulder is fully healed. We feel powerless over this situation and have spent a lot of time applying for assistance and getting put on waiting lists for rent assistance programs or straight up being told there’s no help because of the many other people in our same situation. Programs like these take time, sometimes weeks to months, or no help at all. I’ve been told by many that we are low on the waiting list or that there is no funding at all right now. We unfortunately do not have time; our time is running out. We could lose everything before we could hear back from anyone. We are so grateful for the loving and supportive family we have, who would love to help us as much as they can, but they can’t take in all four of us, nor do we expect that from anyone.

It is terrifying for us to come face to face with being homeless, and we can’t possibly imagine how this would affect our kids, having their house and lives taken out from under them, and being uprooted from their friends and schools if we had to relocate. As parents, we want to do everything we can to protect our children, but there is a harsh reality in front of us right now, and though we are hopeful, we need to prepare for the worst. We just had to put our daily family vehicle through inspection, requiring roughly $900 to pass for needing all new tires among some other repairs like lights and labor. Unfortunately this took a large portion of. the entire amount of my weekly income to cover. A cost that took so much security from our monthly contribution to expenses that we are even more in the negative than before. We are now unable to cover expenses like cell phones, car insurance, gas, food, and other weekly necessities for our children. With your support, we can catch up on rent, keep our utilities on, get food in our cupboards and stay in our home until I’m cleared to return to work. Our family is so grateful for your support and love while we try to get through this hardship. Every little bit truly helps and will collectively add up to help us reach our goal, and by preventing any further damage. Thank you for helping us keep our family safe and together through this difficult time. Please take the time to share this on Facebook and across other social media platforms. We’re thankful to everyone who shares this or can donate to our cause. We will be giving updates as our situation changes to keep everyone in the loop.

Thank you,

The Smiths