In Support of MaryEllen Brady

I never imagined I would be asking people to help me keep my home.

I’m a pre-K teacher, and over a very short period of time, several things went wrong at once. The financial buffer I had worked hard to maintain disappeared much faster than I could rebuild it.

It started when the well house serving my home developed a major leak. Suddenly I had no running water. Because the problem was outside the house itself, my homeowner’s insurance wouldn’t cover the repairs. I had to pay for plumbers, repairs and hotel stays while the work was being completed, all out of pocket.

Then, in the same month, my 2003 Honda Element was hit while I was dropping a seven-year-old off for choir rehearsal at church. I’d owned that car for more than twenty years. After weeks of dealing with insurance and the body shop, it was declared a total loss. While everything was being sorted out, I had weeks of rental-car expenses and then had to find another vehicle.

At the same time, my work was being affected by disruption in the childcare community I rely on for my income. Families were keeping children home from preschool because of increased immigration enforcement activity, childcare arrangements became unpredictable, and the hours I was able to work dropped just when my expenses were at their highest.

Any one of those things, I could have handled.
All three at once were more than my savings could absorb.

I fell behind on my mortgage, and I am now trying to save my home.

I have been told I need approximately $60,000 to bring the mortgage current, including the accumulated arrears, interest and late fees, and restore the loan to its existing terms.

That is the fundraising goal here: the money raised will go toward bringing my mortgage current and keeping my home.

$60,000 is an enormous amount of money, and I don’t expect any one person to solve this for me. I’m hoping that many smaller acts of kindness might give me a chance to get there.

I am working with my mortgage provider through the loss-mitigation process and doing everything I can to find a sustainable way forward. This fundraiser is part of that effort.
Asking for help like this is difficult... but losing my home because several pieces of bad luck arrived at once would be harder.

If you’re able to contribute, thank you. If you can’t, sharing this fundraiser may put it in front of someone who can.

Thank you for helping me fight to stay in my home.

Maryellen