Let's help Papa Jose pay off his mortgage!

Hi, my name is Michelle Vanegas and recently, I had a video of my dad go viral on TikTok (linked below). My dad has only ever had a single photo of his mother, who passed away in 1982 before my sister and I were born. My dad was brought to the United States from Mexico as a child with his grandparents, so he never truly got to grow up with his mother, father, or his siblings. He was the first-born son, and my grandmother had to make the difficult decision to send him away because she knew he had a chance at a better life. My dad spent his years as a young man working so hard to save up enough money to bring his mom to the U.S., but unfortunately, she passed away before he could do that.

For his birthday this year, I took a picture of the photograph of his mother and uploaded it to the r/PhotoshopRequests subreddit where it was seen by user Ozanoka, and beautifully restored by them (picture below). I took the restoration to CVS to print it and frame it, and I wrapped it up to give to him the next day.

It's understandable why the video of my dad's reaction to truly seeing his mother again for the first time in decades has gone viral. Over 5 million views and over 900,000 likes in just two days. So many of us have parents or family members who can relate to my dad's story, and I am blown away by all of the positive, uplifting, and beautiful comments.

I created this GoFundMe with the intention of doing just a little bit more for my dad, with your help. I thought to myself, "If every single person who liked that video gave us a single quarter, my dad would have enough money to pay off his mortgage, and then some." Just a quarter. So I thought, "Well, what do I have to lose?" Nothing really, but with your help, we can literally change the rest of my dad's life. He has sacrificed so much so that my sister and I could have the best lives. We owe him everything, and he deserves nothing but the best.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope that if the video of my dad impacted your life, that you can help impact his too!

Love y'all.

TikTok Video