We are trying to reclaim our lives.

In 2019 my wife and I were hit with a very large medical bill. Due to my depression, anxiety and migraines coupled with a great deal of stress I found out I had ulcers, and one of them put me in the hospital. The ambulance drive from LeSueur to Minneapolis all but wiped us out of our meager savings. Because of this I was forced to take time off of work, and upon coming back I had to take it slowly. Just as I was rounding into my old self Covid hit. As a small business owner when I don’t work I don’t make any money. I was out of work from the second week in March to June 1st. My busy season if you will is the last week of February through to the second week in June. I lost almost 60% of my yearly gross. Had it not been for the $600 on top of my minuscule amount of unemployment I was allowed we might have very well lost our place. My wife works in the kitchen of a nursing home and in the kitchen of an assisted living facility. I own my small business in Chaska, and work for another business in Mankato. Since 6.1.20 my work has been sporadic at best. I have had one day that was like pre-Covid. We also were hit with a mistake in how we did our taxes. While I take full responsibility for my mistake; the fees, penalties and interest have added up to a nightmare. I stopped the campaign for most of the summer. With so many unemployed I felt it was wrong to even ask for help when others had it even worse than we have. I want to thank everyone who has shared my GoFundMe page, and I want to reach through this screen and hug each and every one of you who donated to this in order to help us. We reached nearly $4000 of my goal. Sadly, that isn’t enough to stop the mail, or the calls, and because our luck has been on a bad streak we just found out that our rent is going up another $125 to $175 a month depending on our lease. So we are tightening up even more so. We are looking into bankruptcy. If you haven’t done this; they have you list and value your assets. The only real asset we have besides each other is my life long baseball card collection which I have been slowly selling off pieces. The paperwork says we can save $10,000 worth of assets and I believe our cars. When I added everything together that we own it is valued at less than $10,000 when you consider that selling baseball cards from the 80’s and 90’s for 10-25% of their value makes up the vast majority of that. They are more than cardboard for me, and far more than any money they happen to be worth. They are memories... they are my photographs of the past. So I once again swallow my pride and ask for help. I have never had a lot, but I’ve always been a proud person. Some might say arrogant at times. This is beyond humbling in so many ways. If you have already helped, and you can’t donate further I get it. I hate having to have my hand out asking, but could you be kind enough to share this so maybe someone else who can might help? I send my love, and my deepest gratitude.