Well Repair to Restore Water for Young Family

Hi everyone! My family and I are hoping that we can get some help from you kind-hearted people today so that we can once again have running water in our home. My name is Aerin, and my little family consists of Ruby, my precocious 7 year old daughter, and my mom, Cathy, a retired school nurse. I work as an educational assistant at the middle school, helping children with disabilities in the small town where I grew up. As a single mom and sole breadwinner of the home, I work hard to try and provide a happy and safe home for my family.

About 4 years ago I started the process of buying my first home. After years of renting from a slumlord in a tiny run down house where I constantly had to repair things myself. Once we discovered the home was also riddled with mold, it was a turning point for me. With a small child and aging mother, there was no way we could continue to live in that home and be happy or healthy. Little by little, I started saving every penny I could. It took three years and draining my entire 401k, but last year I finally had enough saved for a down payment! I bought a beautiful home in the country with enough room for all three of us. My daughter finally had her own room and could stop sharing with me! My mom no longer had to sleep in the living room! The feeling of accomplishment I had on closing day is something I will always treasure.

Then, after being in the home for about two months, we started to have problems with our water well. First the pump went up, which cost me almost $1,000 to replace. Not long afterwards, we started to lose well pump prime (the pump’s ability to pull water from the well) and had to pay more to have the plumber come back out to have it reprimed. That happened three more times over the following (add number) months. Fast forward to September 2022, when I woke up one day to my yard flooded with water from the well. The plumber discovered a leak about three feet underground in the casing adapter. After having two different plumbers and a well drilling company come out to assess the issue, we learned that because of the age and style of the well (1975, packer system) there were no repairs that could be made. We’ve now been without water since 1/6/23 and a new well has to be drilled in order to restore water to our home. So here I am, less than a year into home ownership, faced with the monumental expense of having to dig a new well. As you can imagine, I have no savings left to pay for this unexpected expense.

The new well will cost about $6,885 with half ($3442.50) due upfront to begin drilling, as a single mom with one income I’m having a hard time coming up even half. I’ve gone from feeling accomplished and proud to feeling completely defeated in such a short time. Which I imagine is a reasonable reaction to having no running water in your home. Showering at friends and family’s houses and using my neighbor’s collected rain water to flush our toilet is certainly a humbling experience. And though I’ve learned many things in my journey of home ownership, from hanging drywall to installing flooring, there is simply no way I can DIY a new well. My goal is to raise enough to pay for the first half as then the drilling can start and then I’ll have my tax money to cover the other half. Please give what you can. Any amount, no matter how small, would absolutely help us tremendously. To be honest, at this point, helping my family meet our goal would quite literally change our lives.