<div>On May 7th, 2025, at the age of 17 and 19, my little brother and I became orphans.

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<div>Throughout our lives, our family has faced a series of losses. We always had each other, until suddenly, it was just us two. Here is our story:

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<div>6 years ago, our dad had a stroke. Left on an aspirin for 36 hours, our dad fell victim to medical malpractice that led to his left side being completely paralysed. Unable to walk, talk, eat, or live the life he used to live, he became a shadow of himself trapped in a body that betrayed him.

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<div>4 years ago, we lost our grandfather. It was sudden—the Hepatitis B hidden in his liver had presented itself and salvaged his liver completely. The death of our grandpa became our first experience with death.

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<div>2 months later, my mom lost her job and we lost our apartment. We moved into our grandparents’ house. Not a week later after moving into grandma’s house, our family car explodes on the side of the road. No more car, no more apartment.

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<div>2 years ago, we lost our dad to the complications from his stroke. His body couldn’t take it anymore—all the midnight hospital runs, his failing organs, his inability to live life without his body failing him. The lack of health insurance made it impossible to seek help given our financial situation. He became our second death in the family. At 17 and 15, my brother and I learned what it was like to be the children of a single mom.

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<div>Our mom, who was the sole breadwinner for our family before, no longer had a job to fund the medical expenses. My brother had just started his freshman year, and I had started my junior year. So to fund the funeral, the burial, and the grave, our mom took out whatever she could to put our dad to rest.

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<div>Then it happened.

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<div>8 months after our dad’s burial, she’d told us there was a growing tumor in her left breast. Our mom had gotten used to a life of not being a caretaker anymore after spending 4 years caring for my dad. But now, she became the one needing care. Without a job and without health insurance, she was unable to seek the help she needed until it was too late.

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<div>By the time she found out it was triple-negative breast cancer, it had already spread to her lymph nodes. That day in January 2024 became the start of months fighting her cancer, trying new chemotherapy treatments, surgeries, anything to stop it from taking her life.

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<div>Like our dad, our mom’s body betrayed her too. After her first radiation treatment, she recovered and her hair grew back. But just one month later, her cancer returned. The doctors had to continue radiation therapy. This time the medicine was stronger. It inadvertently killed off all her white and red blood cells. Because of this, my mother was constantly dizzy and had to go to emergency. There, they discovered she was anemic. The hospital had to give her blood transfusions.

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<div>During one of those transfusions, she unfortunately contracted cytomegalovirus—the virus that became the final fatal blow to her already weakened immune system. When they gave my mother her first blood transfusion, she received infected blood.

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<div>Infected blood transfusions are a 1 in a million occurrence, yet in some unlucky turn of fate, our mom became one of those cases. The infected blood transfusion taxed her body heavily, worsening the impact of chemotherapy and the cancer on her body.

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<div>Now, 1 week ago, we lost our mom to breast cancer.

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<div>Our mom fought for us to the very end. She knew she would be leaving behind her two kids, orphaned and unprepared in this world. In her final moments with us, she apologized to my brother and I—not for dying, but for leaving us to navigate a world that had already taken so much from us by ourselves.

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<div>We are more than just another story of loss. We are two siblings, 17 and 19, who have watched our world crumble piece by piece over the past six years. We've gone from a complete family to orphans, from financial stability to mounting medical debts, from having a support system to being entirely on our own.

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<div>Our education, our future, and our ability to simply survive now hang in the balance. My brother is still in high school, and I'm trying to figure out how to be both an older sister and a guardian. We have immediate needs—housing, food, basic necessities—and long-term concerns like education costs, funeral costs and medical bills left behind.

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<div>We're reaching out because we need help to stay afloat, to stay together, and to have a fighting chance at the future our parents worked so hard to give us. Every donation, no matter the size, will help us rebuild from this devastating loss and honor the memory of our parents who fought so hard for us until the very end.

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<div>Any support you can offer will go toward:

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<div>Immediate living expenses and housing security

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<div>Outstanding medical bills and funeral costs

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<div>Educational expenses for both of us

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<div>Legal fees for guardianship arrangements

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<div>Basic necessities as we establish our new normal

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<div>We are grateful for any help you can provide, whether it's a donation or simply sharing our story. Thank you for taking the time to read about our journey and for considering helping two siblings stay together and find their way forward.

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Anonymous

T.J. Maher

Paul Green

Penelope Green

Phuong Truong

Sara Lewis

Joseph Ascoli

Sam Liss

Amanda Tan Le

Emma Biason

Patrick Biason

Makenna Dadlani

Ha Nguyen

platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

dyn_template_ids

Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

Bene transfer V6 and AdyenV6MyMoney Campaign Organizers - production

OneTrust next-app audience

fundCountryCode

NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

fundCurrencyCode

US + Non-charity COs Only

locale

fund country is US and user language is English

personId

comms-internal-person-ids

Enhanced Story Experience Users

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user language is English and fund country: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

Poster share - new funds eligible (newest 9/18)

Streaming widgets beta user

paymentProcessor

3DS payment method

user language is English and fundCountry: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

currencyCode

Money Box Donation List Prompt Experiment Audience

GoFundMe Employees

ipAddress

Mark Rieth IP Address

Version 9.2.0 and above

Fund is in English speaking country

desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

paymentMethodType

checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

admin pr kit prod

EUR Donation Upsell

Share Text generation Skip Fundraiser

(prod) new funds eligible for amp12 (UGC gallery)

fintrac_cad_idv_form_v2 audience

paymentProcessorAccountId

fallback mode accounts

proCampaignId

p2p legacy startfundraising page

AMP24 New Funds Only PROD (DO NOT MODIFY)

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charityId

UKCharities

Federated Search Internal Testing

route.pathname community

US Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks Feature Audience

Supporter Comments Eligible Funds

International Only

fundId

braze fundraiser group 

Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

leaderboard-partner-id-audience-givepanel

Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

charityCommunityId

Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

NPO upsell education category

unclaimed charities

prod_ach_audience

AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

NPO recommendations prod

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

Users Receiving Braze KYC Validation Failed

ai_title_page

anyword

openai

control

manual_entry

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template_id

userId

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Native 11.3.0 and above

Native 11.4.0 and higher

New funds eligible - Video Sharing (PROD)

GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

isRecurringFriendly

Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

NPO upsell animals category

NPO upsell disaster relief category

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

NPO upsell essential needs category

NPO upsell medical category

userCurrencyCode

Localized Currency

NPO upsell cancer category

v11.5.0 and above

testAudience

pathname

Survicate

appVersion is at or above 12.8.0

Non-charity fund

isChallengeFundraiser

challenge-fundraisers

Payment Identity Launch Verification - Production

New funds eligible - Posters v2

CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

Ha Nguyen

Still $1,324 to go. Help us build momentum.