Help The Smiths Buy a New Home

Hi, my name is Marri Reyes, and I am the 20-year-old daughter of Vicki and Kirk Smith. They are who this fundraiser is for.

First a little backstory, my parents got married in September 1997. At this time my mom was 21 years old and my dad was 31 with 3 daughters. I recently said that my mom hasn't met a child she hasn't loved and wouldn't take care of and this was, and still is, true for my oldest sisters. She immediately loved them and took care of them. It wasn't something that was contingent on her marriage with my dad, they are in every way that matters, her daughters. She took care of and fought for them through court cases, deployments, puberty ;), relationships, and, in two cases, motherhood. This rule also extended to anyone who needed their love: a teenage niece, a family friend getting out of an abusive relationship with her daughter, and a family of five kids who needed their love.

My parents bought their current house in 2001 when in addition to 3 preteens, had a two-year-old and were pregnant with me. At the time it was a small 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house that they bought because my dad fell in love with the fireplace. Throughout the years we've done a bunch of projects on it so that it is now a 5 bedroom, 1 and 3/4 bath house and has a huge deck out back that every child has helped build. It's the only home I have ever known and we've always made it work when new people have joined our family, even just temporarily, but right now, it's not big enough for us. At the moment 10 people are living in this house and we are bursting at the seams. So the question is, who did my parents take in now?

The answer is: they took in five children from our church who needed a stable home life that was filled with love. This part of the story starts in July 2021, living in the house at this point was just my parents, my brother (Tanner, 17), my husband and I. My husband moved in during the pandemic while he was working since my family was too, to keep his family safe and we stayed to start saving money to buy our own house while we were both in college. Anyway, my parents got a call that my brother's friend had run away from home and his godmother just wanted to see if he was there. He wasn't but Tanner had some ideas on where to find him so my parents went and picked him up. Since this wasn't the first time he had run away due to his home life and he wasn't ready to go back, my parents talked to his mother and agreed that he would stay with us for "just a week". At first, it was just like a long sleepover for my brother but a week came and went and then a month came and went and Anthony did not want to go home. So the state got involved and my parents officially started fostering him! We converted an office into his room and he became a part of the family. My dad went and fought for his rights at the school he was at, my mom was the overbearing mother that every teenage boy hates, and there were plenty of struggles because he wasn't used to our way of life but we were all in a good place. Then, a week before Christmas my parents got another phone call. This was a mental health hospital where Anthony's sister, Gryffin, was at. She was ready to be released and when they couldn't get a hold of her mom, the state recommended my parents. There was no way that they would leave her there. So Gryffin came to stay with us as well, it took us about a week and a lot of moving but we got her into a room too. However, this came at the cost of my parents giving up the master bedroom so that the two teenage boys could share it so that Gryffin (being the only girl) could have her own room. This change was tremendous for us. Our kitchen which was already small suddenly got a lot smaller as we had to get more cabinet storage and we needed a bigger table that everyone could sit around for family dinners. This also brought a whole host of new appointments and challenges and hardships but we were getting through it. My dad quit his job so that he could be at home more to support Gryffin in her transition and mental health before getting a new one this year. It was a daily struggle to try and keep structure, mend arguments that got out of hand, teach rules that needed to be obeyed for safety, and help them cope with past trauma but it was going. Then, you guessed it, my parents got a call. This time it was that the three youngest siblings (F, 12. N, 11. X, 10.), who had periodically come over for play dates to see their older siblings, needed emergency placement. It was September 2022 and the oldest of the three, who has autism, had gone to school and said that she was being physically abused. This was crazy. There was no way my parents would say no to helping them and yet, every reason they should: we didn't have any more room, where would they sleep? we were already struggling financially, could we afford this? my parents were originally only 2 years away from having all grown-up kids, could they become parents to a 10, 11, and 12-year-old again? what trauma will this bring up for the other two? what new trauma would these kids bring to the table? etc etc etc. But they came that evening with all of their clothes shoved into three garbage bags. For a couple of days, they had to sleep on the couch while we strategized how we would now fit even more people in our house. The answer ended up being to have all five foster kids sharing the master bedroom since it had two alcoves that the teenagers could each make their own little bedroom with curtains so they had privacy and then there was still enough space to put in three twin size beds for the littles. We made the bedframes with wood so that the kids could each have storage space underneath and we asked for help on Facebook with the mattresses. That weekend was l-o-n-g but we made it through and now everyone had a bed and a room. It was helpful that the littles had already been sharing a room so they were used to it. However, getting them into rooms was only the tip of the iceberg, the struggles from here only multiplied. There were, and sometimes still are, screaming matches, complete meltdowns, silent treatments, and much more. There were countless days X had to be taken home early because of outbursts, or Gryffin needed to get out of the house because the overstimulation and now feeling responsible for her siblings again, was too much. However, we've worked to adapt and we have. There are still outbursts but now more productive ways to work off that anger, there's now name-calling and then sincere apologies, there are silent treatments that are broken with heartfelt conversations and the growth is amazing. The problem, however, is that no body in the house has any space to breathe or grow apart from each other. That's the purpose of this fundraiser.

We do not have the financial ability to buy a house right now in addition to allowing the kids their wants, like joining after-school activites which they've never been able to do. However, a larger house or renovating the one we have to make it bigger (though that brings up problems of where we live during renovations) would solve so many stressors about the lack of space. The goal here is that we buy a bigger house so that all of the kids can get their own space. Anthony will be turning 18 soon and it would be amazing if he wasn't sharing with his younger siblings. Also, these little kids have never had their own rooms before so giving this will hopefully help to start developing their own self-identities and give them privacy. This will also give us the ability to have a larger kitchen and a bigger table so that we can start all having sit-down dinners together, at the moment it ends up that only 6 people can sit down and the others have to stand around and that's not conducive to teaching family values to them. While my parents got legal custody of Anthony and Gryffin this past month, we don't know what the future will hold for the littles but they deserve the world and a new home would be a great start to this.

Please, even if you can't donate, share this page. As the saying goes, it takes a village and the more people who know, the more people who can join our village. Thank you!