Lauren & Rachel need help

UPDATE: We passed our original $750 goal. I’ve updated the goal to $1500 and will disable donations if we reach that goal so that the next folks in line who need help can get it. Myself, Rachel, the pups, and the snakes are extremely grateful for this outpouring of support. -Lauren

Hey all. My name is Lauren Schrader. My wife and I are going through some rough times right now. One of our dogs, Oreo, has gotten sick with infectious/inflammatory hepatitis (basically a freak incident - most dogs carry the strain that has made him sick and never get sick from it). We blew through our savings and my parents’ care credit card trying to save him. The prognosis still isn’t good, and any more bad news will require a really hard decision to be made.

Coinciding with the unexpected expenses is my wife’s pay schedule switching from monthly to biweekly. This will be amazing in the long term, but in the short term it means getting about half her normal paycheck which will almost all go to rent. I am disabled, and can’t work, and I don’t qualify for disability because Rachel makes too much money (to qualify for disability you must be underneath the poverty line). This results in us having a lot of hard times, but this time we’ve ended up in a position where we can’t make our current supplies last.

Visiting a food bank is simply not an option because the wait times to get into them are so long that we will (hopefully) be back on our feet by the time we could get into one in 4-5 weeks, and we don’t have a car which complicates getting to the food bank.

I’m setting a goal of $750, which would be awesome to hit, but I am mainly just looking for any mutual aid. I need about $150 for medical expenses, $150 to feed my animals, and $450 for my own groceries. Groceries are one of the more flexible costs here. This money will need to last me for over a month after I post this.

Finally, I want to preemptively say thanks to anyone who wants to help. We really appreciate it.