Supporting Marie: A Colleague Who Now Finds Herself In Need

As Marie’s former coworkers, we are organizing this fundraiser for someone who has spent her life helping others and never expected to find herself needing help in return.

This fundraiser is not about charity. It’s a temporary bridge to help Marie remain secure and independent while she waits for her disability benefits to be approved. Every contribution goes directly toward essential living expenses, nothing more.

Marie has always preferred to work behind the scenes, helping others solve problems without seeking recognition. She would never ask for this herself, which is why we’re asking on her behalf. Your support will help her maintain the independence she fought so hard to preserve and remind her that perseverance still matters in a world that sometimes overlooks it.

Marie built a 26-year career in technology with a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding community access and the public good. She was known for her steady reliability, intelligence, and compassion toward her colleagues and the people her work supported. Before that, she worked as a social worker and volunteered with programs for children and adults with disabilities as well as organizations assisting military veterans. Making a difference in practical, meaningful ways has always been important to her.

Over time, Marie’s complex medical conditions worsened, including a rare form of muscular dystrophy, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, POTS, complex regional pain syndrome, and the progression of severe vestibular disorders that cause dizziness, falls, impaired vision and unpredictable blackouts.

Even as her health declined, Marie refused to give up.

She adapted by using assistive technology, specialized software, and every available accommodation to keep meeting deadlines from home, even on her hardest days. When walking became unsafe, her physicians prescribed a lightweight wheelchair with power assist so she could keep working rather than stop. Those of us who worked with her watched her show up day after day when most people would have stepped back years earlier.

A sudden medical emergency and hospitalization in early 2025 became a turning point from which she never fully recovered. She tried to return to work, but her health made full-time employment impossible. Her long career ended later that year, only after exhausting every possible option to remain employed.

As one of her physicians wrote in 2020: "I take care of lots of people with chronic illnesses. I will say that you are in a group of maybe less than five people that I can think of that has worked so hard to remain employed and continue to 'contribute to society,' if you will." That observation still holds true today.

Marie has applied for Social Security Disability Insurance, not by choice, but after every other option had been exhausted. The process can take two to three years.

In the meantime she has no family, no income or immediate support. She has sold belongings, reduced every expense possible, and contacted every agency for assistance, but resources are stretched thin everywhere.

What remains uncovered are the basic costs that keep her safe and stable: housing, utilities, medical care, and food.

Thank you for reading, sharing, and standing with someone who gave her best for decades and continues to meet every challenge with quiet determination and grace.