I met Tara in 2009 and was immediately was impressed by her drive to make the world better. She was a stay at home mom, with an outdoor education resume, studying permaculture, living in Sacramento. I stayed in touch-- watched her kids grow up, and saw Tara become the woman she always wanted to be. She moved back to St Thomas, Virgin Islands to provide help and relief in her old community after Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the islands, and has lived there ever since--backyard farming, fishing, living as simply as possible, earning a living working at a plant nursery and landscaping.

About a year ago the health challenges began. First it was Covid, then an unexplained, debilitating, whole body inflammation. Then her diagnosis of lung cancer shifted everything. Because the cancer center in St Thomas blew away in 2017 hurricanes, she has to travel to Florida to receive chemo and radiation treatments. She has insurance but radiation is $150 copay for each of 30 sessions. Add that to labs, other copays, rent back on her island home, as well as an Air B&B room and car rental in Florida for months at a time. Simple living is hard enough when you’re feeling fit, but fishing and farming with these poisons flowing through her veins? Her savings will not get her through. Her kids can't help; they're just starting out. I’m telling her not to exhaust herself with more work than she can handle-- that her job is to rest and heal. That’s why I’m asking you to help her do just that. Doctors say she is curable, but she needs to be able to take care of herself.