Help Andy, Lloyd, and Tobias Find Safety

Hi! We're Andy, Lloyd, and itty-bitty Tobias! We're Cabarrus County natives, and the first thing anyone knows about us is that we love our state.

When we bought our house in Kannapolis right before the pandemic, we thought we were moving into our forever home. But now, in the wake of the last election, we're being run out.

In 2024, Andy ran for Congress; he would've been the first openly transgender man to hold higher office. We were gearing up to run again and had gotten to the announcement - and 48 hours later, our personal nightmare began. Our house keeps getting vandalized - we've filed 5 police reports in the last month, and had more than 15 separate incidents that keep getting worse. All of our vehicles, including the bus and a family member's trailer, saw the tires slashed. Another night, we left for an hour to go to dinner and came back to marks on the bus bumper where someone had driven up, attached a chain, and tried to rip it off. Our mail has been stolen, and our neighbor across the street has seen vandalism as well (a painted swastika). When that didn't make us move, we saw nails driven head-down into our gravel driveway, and then broken glass on our front porch and in the sideyard where our 2 year old plays, and people have been seen in our carport, staring into our bedroom windows late at night. One of our cars saw additional damage, in the form of a smashed tail light and dents that actually left shoe impressions, and our signs warning about surveillance have been ripped and removed twice.

We're temporarily couch-surfing at night while we try to protect our home long enough to get new tires and have the fuel lines tested on our bus, Kismet, but our family is often split between two separate counties - the stress and sense of danger is taking a toll. Andy has since abandoned his dream of running for Congress in this district due to the threat (the safety of our family has to come first), and we've taken down our Pride flag and added cameras, motion sensors and more, but it hasn't stopped. The last incident as of this posting was three days ago, on the 22nd.

In short - we're scared, and with the level of vandalism, this project has gone from something we could space out to reduce cost to something necessary that must be completed NOW.

We love this city; we've loved watching it grow and become successful around us. We love taking our little boy to the park or downtown just to wander and see the shops.

But because being a queer couple is apparently "dangerous", a few people in the city we love are telling us we aren't welcome. So instead, we'd like your help making a home that nobody can take from us: a skoolie that will let us continue our work, but let us be mobile so we won't be in so much danger and can raise our son Tobias without having to worry about when the next broken glass pane will happen, or worry about the slurs yelled from passing vehicles waking him up or disrupting our work day again.

Help us make Kismet the Wander Bus a reality!

Why a skoolie (converted school bus)?

Originally, the plan was to convert this bus into a comfortable living space to operate a campaign out of, and see some of North Carolina while doing it so our family wouldn't have to be so split up. Traditionally, a skoolie conversion runs at less than 25% of the price of an RV, and well under even $40,000 in total if you can do a lot yourself. We'd managed to compress the costs by doing much of the labor ourselves and sourcing our appliances, inverter, and solar panels over time, so we've already gotten the 'expensive' parts as we could afford them.

Why is this necessary?

As members of the LGBTQ+ community, and as a family with a publicly-available address due to Andy's work, we don't feel that we'd be safe with an address for someone to easily find. The harassment this time has been targeted, and it's clear that whomever has been doing this is watching our home for comings and goings - but the police haven't been much help, in one case stating this was "par for the course".

This isn't normal.

What will your donation be used for?

We'll be using the funds from this to get new tires on the bus, have someone check the fuel (as one morning, we found the access panel to the fuel tank unlocked - but we can't prove that someone tampered with it. 60 gallons of diesel is a lot to dispose of and waste, and we'd prefer not to if unnecessary), and get the coolant and brake lines looked at and repaired. Any further money will be used to hire professionals to get our bus ready faster, and pay for alternate parking arrangements as our current space is unsafe.