My best friend since 5th grade, Marion "Meg" Grayson, needs help funding repairs to make her home habitable as she is navigating the stress of divorce. Meg has spent the majority of her life serving others; now she needs people to step up and help her.

Last week Meg was struggling, but managing, to come up with the money needed to make her circa 1920 row home compliant with the current codes so she can move back into it, and she was making payments towards the balance her attorney needs to finalize her divorce. Unexpectedly, she lost her job as a legislative aid on Wednesday. Now Meg is desperately searching for new employment in a tough job market while stuck living with her not yet ex-wife in an untenable living situation.

After high school, Meg earned her B.S. in mathematics from Widener University before attending the Theological School of Drew University. She served as a UMC pastor at two different churches before transitioning back to full-time IT work as a data/reporting analyst at JP Morgan Chase and AIG. During this time, she provided several years of end-of-life care to her mother and then to her father, survived her own fight against thyroid cancer and was diagnosed with and treated for both clotting disorder and diabetes. Despite these obstacles, she went on mission trips to help with housing needs in Swan Quarter, NC and Pahokee, FL; she traveled to Northern New Jersey for relief work after Hurricane Sandy, regularly participated in local community outreach, and she served as a church musician.

Meg married in 2017 and moved in with her wife while the pair was working to remodel and move into her home. In 2019, AIG laid off their entire US team and Meg was suddenly unemployed. She and her spouse stopped the remodel and instead made plans to open a small restaurant. This would allow Meg to turn her passion for cooking into a business, provide commercial space for her to prepare meals for those in need, and let her wife leave her high-stress job as an emergency room RN at the regional trauma center to join her at the restaurant.

Shortly after they leased a former pizza shop and started remodeling it themselves, COVID shut everything down. Meg shifted to community service for the next 18 months. She organized and did most of the cooking to feed up to 400 people Sunday Supper once a month at her church, she regularly cooked and delivered meals to the ER staff where her wife worked, and she delivered farmer-to-family fresh food boxes to 50-100 families weekly.

In 2022, renovation hurdles and permitting roadblocks meant giving up the lease on the restaurant without ever having done more than provide made-to-order dinners for medical center staff. In February of 2023 Meg accepted the legislative assistant position. The job allowed Meg to serve the community by educating constituents about available resources and connecting them to needed services, but the pay was low so she also tutored math and reading part time.

Meg was blindsided one day in October 2023 when she learned that her spouse was filing for divorce. Within a few months, she discovered that because her 100-year-old house had been vacant for seven years with no utilities connected for most of that time, the electrical system was no longer grandfathered in for code compliance. In order to pass inspection so that power can be reconnected, she would need to have the breaker box moved out of the basement and upgraded. Several other things also require updates before the house can be occupied, including new wiring, a new hot water heater, and possibly a new furnace. To date, she has invested about $6,000 to resolve the circuit breaker issue, to get some electrical junctions replaced and for the initial retainer to her attorney. She needs another $6,000 - $10,000 to finish the necessary repairs to be able to move back into her home and to finalize her divorce.

As of today, Meg’s only income is from part time work as a tutor, and she expects to lose her health insurance. I have absolutely no idea how she is holding herself together. Please pray for her as she struggles to manage all of these stressors and pitch in any amount you are able. Meg is desperate to get her divorce finished and her house updated enough to pass the inspections needed for her to move back into it. Any donations would be an absolute blessing for Meg. Thank you for reading her story.