#SaveTheFarm from corporate greed!

Hi everyone, I'm Jaylen! I'm 14 years old and live on a farm with my mom and a bunch of rescue animals: cats, dogs, horses, a rotten little pony whom I love very much, and hopefully someday soon chickens, goats, and who knows what else! I'm in 4-H with my dogs and horses, studying to get my Ham Radio license, and I love thrift shopping and being silly with my mom!

tl;dr - The bank is trying to steal our house! Please help us fight the corrupt mortgage company so me, my mom, and all our animals will have a place to live!

I'm currently homeschooled and am learning a lot of things on the farm, from animal husbandry (I'm currently learning to trim horse hooves) to cooking from our homegrown garden (our green beans are the best), music appreciation (piano, guitar, audio mixing), and lots of amazing things in between! I love being able to learn from home so I can take care of all my pets and help out my mom.

But it's not been easy. The last couple of years have been a struggle, mostly for my mom. I watched her go through so much. She took care of my grandmother (Ema) after my grandfather (Poppy) died suddenly in 2018. He had a heart attack driving them home from an eye appointment. Then, Ema had Alzheimer's which made her extremely difficult to live with and my mom sacrificed a lot to take care of her. She couldn't live alone after Poppy died because the farm was too much to take care of, and her health was declining quickly. We prepared to be long-term live-in caregivers, but she had other plans. She was in Hospice by the end of 2019, and died the first day of 2020. And, as we all know, 2020 was a rough year for a lot of people. Mom also lost her other mother (MIL), an uncle and grandmother, then lost a lot of her income due to COVID, and her 20-year marriage ended in divorce.

But despite all of that she stayed strong and kept us going for the past few years. She got me to my 4-H events, the county fair, countless horse shows, dog shows, and many homeschool events. She managed to hang on to her own business during the hardest time in our economic history, and to continue to pay all the bills, and deal with the new and sometimes unexpected expenses on a house and property that she had not expected to be paying by herself at her young age. I love my mom a lot, and I love our home.

As a child, I grew up coming to this farm, visiting my grandparents almost every weekend, spending countless holidays here, and making lifelong memories. There was always something interesting going on over here. Now as a teenager, I live here, and would like to continue to do so without being kicked out due to corporate greed.

I have heard my mom say repeatedly how the bank broke a federal law, how they refused to take her payments, how they made it impossible to deal with, and how it all boils down to them trying to steal our house. I have been with her through all of this and have heard her arguing with them over the phone, have gone with her in person to the bank, and have seen all that she's gone through to make the payments. She wants to fight the bank but can't seem to find a lawyer.

I've never done something like this before, and my mom has never liked to burden others by asking for help, but she has been backed into a corner and I don't know how to help her, so I'm turning to the internet in hopes we can all come together and help her save our home. I am asking for your help in raising the funds we need to pay off the remaining balance on the mortgage and prevent the bank from taking our home away.

Any contribution, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated and bring us one step closer to saving our home and keeping us safe and secure. I promise we will keep you updated on our progress and will be transparent about how the funds are being used. Ultimately if we could just raise enough money to pay the off mortgage it would end this fiasco once and for all. However, there is about $18,000 in fines and past due fees which would be used to stop the current fraudulent foreclosure and give us some time to find a lawyer who will help us fight. That will cost around $5,000, unless we can find someone "pro bono".

Because of this long uphill battle with the bank, some of the current projects around the house and the farm have been put on hold. The farm needs a lot of work - fencing in disrepair, an older barn has fallen down, the ancient in-ground pool needs fixed or filled, trees have fallen down and need cleared, all kinds of interior work, 40-year-old carpets, cracked walls, low water pressure, furnace completely gone out, and so much more. Maintaining a 140-year-old farmhouse and 7 acres by ourselves isn't easy, but it's worth it.

We just want a chance to live and work on the property without the worry of constant bank threats over a mortgage they would never even let us pay for. So if there's any extra money in this fund after the mortgage troubles are solved, that is what it will go toward.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,

Jaylen