Wapekeka Housing for the Brown Bear Family

Hello everyone! Pleased to meet you, I'm Jessica Brown of the Brown Bear Family! We are asking for your help to fundraise construction supplies for our first house!

The Wapekeka First Nations Band has graciously allocated to our family it's first house - thank you so much, miigwetch!

The problem is... it is only a 1 bedroom unit for our 2 parent, 2 children & 1 co parent household - we are a a blended family!

Our 2 year old son can sleep with us in the bedroom for the time being but our daughter will have to sleep in the livingroom, which means her mother will have nowhere to sleepover as she co-parents with us. We will have no livingroom for family bonding or for our children to have friends sleepover as they grow up. We will have no space to have extended family & friends come to visit or just space to live outside of our own beds.

The solution is... to buy the construction supplies needed and pay a crew to build an extention onto the unit. But it is not cheap by any means considering the cost of construction supplies to begin with, shipping them rural/remote Northern Canada, then selling them wholesale, then shipping them to the First Nations reserve you are located in. 'Mistik North Building Supplies & General Store' does a huge service to Canadian First Nations but most families cannot meet the financial demands to cover such construction without help. Customers have to have it flown in by cargo plane or wait until Winter where ice roads can be build and travel to get the supplies themselves.

After the traumatic birth of my son and the stress thereafter our family is in desperate need of a positive fresh start. Three of my spinal disks started to collapse as I was 34 weeks pregnant with out son, we were awaiting news if we would be allocated a house and instead were awaiting an emergency c-section and spinal chord surgery. Instead we awaited news if I would ever walk again as a first time mother and stepmother. I worried if I would even be able to help my husband move into our first house if or when we got the news...

Thankfully two years later I am walking with my son, I am lifting him in the air as he laughs, I am buying furniture and picking out paint colours with my stepdaughter for our soon-to-be finished house, I am excited for our future with my husband... But no parent can easily admit that their future needs help.

We have been quoted materials for 2 small bedrooms and a storage porch.

Bedrooms so my son and stepdaughter can have their own space to live, learn and grow up. Mistik North has initially quoted for 28k in materials from their lumberyard to Pickle Lake, ON Canada. To have it shipped the rest of the way to Angling Lake, ON Canada would be almost another 15k.

Even if we can fundraised between 15-20k just to buy the materials would be the biggest blessing for our family after so much struggle. With my recovery I could drive with my husband to pick up the materials but we need your help for the cost. Please.

Please help my children, help our little family, finally have its first own place to physically/mentally feel safe and sound.