<div>I'm Mandy, and I may seem like I have it together but I'm STRUGGLING. Here's how it happened:
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<li>Taught in an LAUSD classroom for 6 years underpaid, built no savings
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<li>Became a radical artist because I thought I could do more good teaching more broadly and creatively—ended up eating cheese eggs for dinner a lot
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<li>Got a full time non-profit job, got on my feet. Thank God.
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<li>2020 rolls around and I have $30k in savings. Folks are signing up for my Patreon, but realistically, it's another job. I've promised to write an essay a month. And I pay a designer $200 to make it visually appealing. At the same time, I'm on 3 suicide response teams, my closest friends can't pay their rent, and two of my best friends, looking for housing (who are genderqueer) tell me the best deal they can find is in City Terrace. Neither one of them has ever lived in a neighborhood like that. I lived in Harlem. I know it's not a safe idea. I use my dad's good credit and find a place for us all to live. I continue to empty out my savings taking on most of the rent because I have faith it will come back tenfold (spoiler: it hasn't)
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<li>2021: My parents had looked forward to being able to support me because they have seen how hard I work for community. They are proud of my heart. But their heart's are struggling. They hear helicopters flying dead bodies over the park and they can't take it any more. They've been living in a Harlem brownstone without heat for 3 years because they can't afford to expedite a furnace change in their historic brownstone through the corrupt buildings department bureaucracy. They take a short sale for 60% of the previous valuation of our home. One week later, the New York Times releases the first of many stories about Black home sellers being under bid. My father has a heart episode. And even more unexpected costs arise.
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<li>2022: I become seriously ill. Chronic Gerd flareups, Auto Immune Disease (Histamine Allergy), and a grapefruit sized Ovarian cyst, among other smaller ones and fibroids. I experience 10/30 days in high pain. Completely bed bound and disabled. My father is diagnosed with prostate cancer. We're so blessed because if it weren't for the constant testing because of that heart condition, we wouldn't have caught it so early. Nevertheless, unexpected costs arise.
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<li>2023: I get great health insurance through my job, but my complex and mysterious conditions cost $1000's in specialist visits to decode. At one point in time they speculate I have a brain tumor. They suggest I may need to remove my reproductive organs. They shove cameras down my throat and up my vagina. I'm slowly getting better, but when I'm not crippled by pain, I'm too burnt out to go on writing those essays for Patrons, or apply for grants, or continue my radio show. People forget about me, Patrons drop off. Savings dwindle.
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<li>Late 2023: things get bad at home, too. I leave an abusive living situation, and have to do it immediately and secretly. I am itinerant for 2 months. I stay on couches when I can, but run down the last of my savings at hotels for weeks. Savings at $0.00
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<li>2024: I move in to my dream apartment after years of trying to mutual aid in queer co-living spaces. It's my first time living alone at 35 years old, because I felt I didn't deserve it. I can barely afford it. My father chips in, but he's unable to help as much as he'd like because his rental property has taken 2 years beyond schedule to complete needed renovations (leaking roof, no insulation, etc.).
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<li>August 4th, 2023: I total my car on dirt road in Idyllwild.
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<li>Now: I have bills coming up I know I can't pay. I am terrified of how I will do what I need to do. I am starting to overwork myself. I am scared to get sick again.
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<li>Update: Called insurance, I was foolishly miserly and have no coverage for totaling my car. It's a total loss. And I need a car for my work in support artist's events and projects. 
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<div>Many of you have preconceived notions of what I have, where I'm from and what I make. Some of them may be true. But let's be honest here, my father was the first one to go to college. He paid for his parents, for his youngest brother's schooling, he paid for mine, and he paid for a good life. From that privileged position, I decided to dedicate my life to giving back to others. I've built my career with as much integrity as I can manage. I still think about the fast fashion brand who offered me $5000 to dj, but I couldn't shake the idea of when the enslaved workers were sewing messages into the tags hoping desperately to be saved.
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<div>I need help and I am working hard to earn more, but I need a nest egg right now. I need an all out work of miracles. I need angels and protectors. I need believers.
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<div>If I can get over the 30k just to get back on my feet, I will put it towards continuing my medical treatment and maybe even freezing my eggs so I can consider having a child of my own one day.
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<div>I come to you humbly, honestly, and fairly desperately. I appreciate your time and consideration. And I promise that it will come back to you tenfold.
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