Note: I have removed the donation button from my page. If you would like to donate, please contact me via email from the "About" page (link at top right column). Thank you very much to all who contributed!
I received the following email today from my friend Kerry:
Hello to everyone,
I hope this email
finds you all well. You may or may not have already heard, but the xxxxx/xxxxx household has had a bit of bad luck lately but we are
muddling through. On Friday of last week, we awoke at 1 am to hundreds
of gallons of sewage flowing into tthe house from two of our 3 toilets.
The carpets in the Master bedroom, livingroom and den area all had to
be ripped out and the dry wall removed several inchess up the wall.
This proved to be a hard thing to get done as the landlord tried to
blame the backup on us. Many arguements later, the visits from carpet
specialists and a plumber, and promises of calls to a lawyer, the
landlord finally got off his butt and did something. Unfortunately, the
damage was already done. We have lost all the bedroom furniture from
the master bedroom except the bed, and all our livingroom furniture
minus the entertainment center and James recliner, which is insured.
We also lost both computer desks. The real heartache came when we
realized, (early on) that the kids Christmas Presents were on the floor
in the master bedroom closet next to the bathroom. At first it seemed
all would be lost. But the next morning we opened boxes and were able
to save a good portion of the gifts we had bought. So as you can see,
life has been challenging latley, to say the least.
We
have set up house in the remaining portion of the house and it is
crowded but livable. We will move the Tree to the Playroom which is
currently our livingroom and christmas will still happen for the
kids. Gettiing to the internet will be difficult as we can only use
tthe laptop from the kitchen, but our home phone is up and running
again after 3 visits from Brighthouse . The worst part is that due to
several incidents with the landlord where he was verbally abusive to
me or Katie, James has had to stay home from work to deal with tthe
contractor and landlord and has missed work. So no money coming in and
furniture to replace...Merry Christmas to us.
But we are together and safe and that is the important part.
Kerry is currently sharing a home with another couple, and they are helping each other to raise their young children, including a one-month-old newborn. In an effort to help them out as they recover from this mess, I have added a button to this site (at the top left of the page) to submit a donation for Kerry and her family.
Everyone is strapped for money this time of year, but if you can spare $5 or $10 toward their cleanup and replacing the things that were destroyed, I can tell you that your kindness will be greatly appreciated. (When you click the Donation button, the page you go to says "Tip Jar"--that's what TypePad calls the system that processes the transaction as it is usually used for 'Support this site' types of collection.)
We wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season, and much good fortune in the new year!
As you may or may not know, for the past several months I'd been working on a freelance basis doing web development and internet marketing for small organizations. Last month I decided to join up with 
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