I'm Valiant. I'm a single father of two teen boys. I used to be a chemist and made okay money, but I put that aside for gig work to make sure I'm available for all my kids' sports and after-school activities. Their mother doesn't have to pay child support and isn't super involved.

I went to Electric Forest Music Festival 2025 to work security. It was a long and stressful week of little sleep and only about 5 hours to actually enjoy the festival. When I left the festival in Michigan to head home to Ohio, about an hour into the trip, we hit stop-and-go traffic. One of the times I got stopped in traffic, I was rear-ended on the freeway by a young lady. It pushed my vehicle into the one in front of me. My van appeared to be mostly cosmetic. We both exchanged info and made sure everyone was okay. Her radiator was leaking and getting hot already. We both agreed we would try to get our vehicles back home and deal with the insurance later. She only made it about one exit and her vehicle died. Mine made it about 3 hours until it suddenly overheated and blew up. I then found it had a small crack in the radiator and caused the head gasket to blow. She was nice enough to cover my tow bill. She has been amazing so far with helping to fix this.

Now, my issue is that rent is due on the first and evictions get issued by the 15th with a $10/day late fee. I could normally make it happen with my Amazon Flex work and other side work, but with no vehicle, I am not sure how I'm going to keep my kids and myself from getting evicted. I know insurance will give me some money eventually to cover the van, but I know it will not be in time to help me with my rent. Any help the forest love can help provide would be a huge show of love to a fellow human. You might have even seen me in my loin cloth on Sunday in the forest handing out mini frisbees. Had to see String Cheese at the forest.