Vicki's miracle fund

My name is Doug Cadmus. I want to tell you about my friend, one of the most giving and selfless people I have ever met, Vicki Brooker. Vicki needs your help right now -- she's at risk of losing her home, and with it her beloved animals. If you know Vicki -- if you're one of the countless folks who've benefited from her generous spirit and ever-ready support -- then you will be as eager as I am to offer something in return, so feel free to scroll down and skip all my blather. For the rest...

I met Vicki 18 years ago when I joined Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, then a little coffee roasting company in Vermont. Vicki was in Administration, which meant she did every sort of thankless task that made everybody else's job remotely possible. Including mine. It was some 10 months after I started that I discovered Vicki's superpower. I had the good fortune to visit some of GMCR's origin farms on a trip to Guatemala. There were maybe ten of us, Vicki among them, from all corners of the company -- sales, marketing, roasting, facilities, engineering... the works. Oh, and our shiny new COO. He'd started just weeks before, and he was about to get a sense of Vicki's powers, too.

In the course of that origin trip I think Vicki charmed every farming family she met, while she exercised her uncanny ability to suss out just what somebody needed, and then see to it they got it. Pencils and paper. A singalong. A game of tag. A few Quetzal in exchange for a simple bracelet. A hug. She also made certain our new COO was altogether aware of the importance of GMCR to the community it called home... if GMCR's founder hadn't made that clear enough, well Vicki certainly did. Something stuck: Our new COO proved an excellent steward of GMCR's values and commitments.

Vicki retired from GMCR after 25 years... when even she was no longer able to impress upon the company the value of its commitments. She worked for some while at a corner convenience store, and more recently as a Director in the Senior Center in Waterbury, doing different things at each, but also the same: she helped people. As she'd always done.

As a single mom who raised two boys. As a mother figure to countless kids from her community. Her house was a haven for neighborhood kids who needed a safe place to hang out after school, grab a meal, or a soft place to land for a few months. And, after all the kids who once called Vicki's house home were grown, her home became a haven for animals in need of a better life. Among them, Pip, Chester and Syd, her "fur babies" who've helped her through a tremendous amount of loss in the last two years.

Last year Vicki's youngest son Brian had been sharing her house, and together they'd been planning for her retirement when, suddenly -- tragically -- he passed away. Vicki tried to carry on. She continued to work at the senior center. And then, as suddenly as Brian's passing, Vicki's world caved in.

“One night," Vicki recounts, "about three weeks after Brian died, when the pain was so bad I thought I’d die, Syd jumped up on the couch with me, wedged herself full length between me and the back of the couch, threw her leg over me and held me while she kissed my tears away."

Vicki suffered an acute mental health crisis. She was suddenly unable to function... unable to care for herself, much less work.

"I broke last fall, and I lost my job when I did. Now I’m losing my house and part of the reason I’ve been in the psych unit for almost three months is because I can’t give Syd and Chester and Pip away or put them down any more than I can cut off my hands. We need a miracle and they’re in damned short supply these days.”

Vicki has done so much for so many. It's only right and fair we return the favor.

Our goal is to raise $48,000 by June 1st. We are trying to raise enough money to pay for Vicki's bills for a year and pay for a few repairs around the house as well. Our hope is that by taking care of Vicki's mortgage, taxes, basic care needs, and animal expenses, that Vicki will be able to take the time she needs to heal from the tremendous losses she's experienced. Let's show Vicki there's magic left in this world.