Help us bring Bella back home

ALL FUNDS DONATED WILL GO TO THE LEGAL FEES REQUIRED IN ORDER TO BRING BELLA BACK HOME. UNFORTUNATELY, DUE TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES LISTED BELOW, WE WON'T BE ABLE TO WIN THIS FIGHT WITHOUT THE HELP OF OTHERS. IF YOU KNOW BELLA, THEN US LOSING THIS COULD MEAN NONE OF US (including yourselves) COULD SEE OR TALK TO HER AGAIN. IF 150 FAMILIES COULD PLEDGE $100, WE CAN REACH OUR GOAL, BUT EVEN IF YOU CAN ONLY GIVE $1, YOUR HELP STILL MEANS MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE TO US RIGHT NOW. CONSIDER SHARING THIS AS WELL IF YOU ARE IMPRESSED.

 

 

I know what is just below seems very long; I encourage you to read if you would like. The reason it is so long is because a lot has been going on, and I want to lay out the entire situation for you all the best that I can in order to show you what we've been going through in a nutshell. It's hard to truly condense all of this information, so please bear with me. Thank you.

 

 

Hello everyone, my name is Kamali. You may or may not know me, but perhaps you know my other family members, Angie and/or Imani. The thing that all three of us have in common is that we have been housing and caring for Bella Carter for almost a year now. Angie is her Titi (aunt), and Imani, like myself, are her cousins. In case some of you do not know the situation, please allow me to inform you and get you up to speed on the situation as to why we have this GoFundMe account set up. If you know me, then you understand I don't like to talk about people's lives just because, but unfortunately, things have gotten dire, and I believe it is important for you all to know what we've been going through for the past year in order to keep Bella safe. Should you find it in your heart to help us in her time of need, we will forever be grateful. Even $1 helps us out greatly. If you're maybe a classmate or family member of Bella's and have not seen or heard from her in a while, hopefully this provides some clarity.

 

Let's start from the beginning and see how we got to where we are now. A long time ago, Bella's father passed when she was young, so she was never able to grow up and create memories with him. Bella's mom had been dealing with a lot of personal issues that she was trying to overcome and was going in and out of jail when we took Bella into our lives. Bella's mother, Bobbie, made one thing very clear to us when we came and picked up Bella's belongings at the place they were staying (it was not Bobbie's home as she did not have one at the time). She told us that the reason she wanted us to take Bella into our care was because she trusted us beyond measure. If you knew Bobbie, then you can understand how big of a deal that is because Bobbie didn't care about anything in the world other than her daughter Bella. The only thing that brought Bobbie happiness, a sense of purpose, and self-belonging was 100% Bella. So giving her up was really hard, but because she was going to jail soon, she didn't have a choice. She made it very clear that not only were we the ones she wanted to keep Bella safe, but under all circumstances, she did not want Bella in the hands of her grandparents.

 

Now normally, your grandparents are something to be proud of; I in fact love my grandparents very dearly. Unfortunately, Bella's grandparents were a different kind of people, according to not only Bobbie, but we also heard the same thing from Bobbie's sister and brother, who are still alive today. None of them are in contact with Bella's grandparents because of the dysfunctional life Bobbie mentioned they had with them. Bella specifically mentions how she doesn't want to be anywhere near her grandmother, as they have caused a lot of distress and issues for Bella and Bobbie in the past, so much so that again, in Bobbie's time of need, she still did not want to seek help from Bella's grandparents. Keep that in mind as we continue on...

 

It was summertime 2023 when we took Bella into our lives, so one of the first things we did was get her enrolled in school. She made new friends and started her new life at Conway Elementary. When Bella was in our care, she did not come with much; she needed all kinds of clothes and shoes before we could send her off to school. The things her Titi Angie did in the background to jumpstart everything to give Bella a normal life were nothing but superhuman, and Bella may never know everything it took to get that to happen. We haven't received any aid from the government in order to take care of her, we solely took her in because we love her, and not for any financial relief. Though we cared very much for her, all Bella could talk about was being able to see her mom again once she got out of jail. We never expected this to be forever, and we made it clear with Bobbie that once she is out of jail and stable, she is able to take Bella back anytime. That was always our promise to her.

 

Fast forward to Christmas time, and Bobbie was out of jail on house arrest. All she wanted, of course, was to see Bella, so for Christmas, Bella went to spend time with her mother for the holidays. Unfortunately, that is when Bobbie passed away from a heart attack, and now what was once a temporary situation was now something that looked to be permanent. Bella now has no father and no mother, and the last thing the mother made clear to us before she left was that she wanted her with us, not the grandparents.

 

Immediately following Bobbie's funeral, the grandparents sent police to our home to take Bella away from us. Bella was about to go hang out with one of her school friends when, all of a sudden, the police came and said that her grandparents had gone to court to take her away from us. Come to find out, the grandmother told the court that she was staying with completely random strangers and was able to receive an emergency vacate order to take her away conveniently filed directly after Bobbie's funeral. Bella was sobbing to the likes that we have never seen before, as she desperately does not want to be with her grandparents. To be very clear, we even received messages from them saying how they are happy for Bella and that they would never pursue legal action to take her from us. As you can see, that promise did not last very long.

 

She was taken from us on 1/17/24, and that weekend we scraped up all the money we had and maxed out our bank accounts in order to file a motion to try and stop them in their tracks. On 3/19/2024, we had the court hearing and won technically, but it did only so much in order to bring Bella back home. What we thought was going to reverse the decision and bring her home only ended up just stopping their custody order. Still a win, yes, but unfortunately, it seems the finish line went from being only a mile away to what feels like 10 miles away now after our court win.

 

IF YOU'VE READ THIS FAR, YOU ARE NOW BASICALLY UP TO DATE WITH THINGS IN A NUTSHELL. IF INTERESTED, ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS UP NEXT AND THE FINANCIAL ROAD BLOCKS WE ARE FACING SO THAT YOU ALL CAN BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS WILL HELP US.

 

As of now, we are unable to physically continue our court battle because of the things mentioned below. With your help, we have a chance to keep going, but in all honesty, should we lose, the grandparents have made it very clear to us that both we (me, Angie, and Imani) and anyone who knows us will not be allowed to speak or see Bella again. Since the police came to take Bella, the grandparents have done the following:

 

First, they bought Bella a new phone and phone number in order to try and remove connections with anyone she currently knows and can talk to. Bella has been taking extreme measures to stay in contact with us so that she can update us on what they are doing to her. She told us very clearly that she can't even talk to her elementary school friends because it is possible that they know me, Angie, or Imani. If you're a family member or friend of hers, we encourage you to reach out to her, but you'll likely find you might have green bubbles on iMessage as well, indicating that whatever message you send will not be received by her.

 

Secondly, because of their "family name" (that I will not mention here), the grandmother keeps publications like TMZ and other drama-related "news" sources up to date on our legal battles. She slanders Angie's name online and paints her as a villain, leaking personal information and such, all because of her bitterness towards us that her own daughter Bobbie trusted us more to take care of Bella. On the contrary, you will not find anything online where we (me, Angie, or Imani) slander the grandmother in return, as that is not who we are.

 

Lastly, if you recall, towards the beginning of this long summary, I mentioned Bella's father passed away when she was young. Shortly after, as mentioned, Bella's mother also passed. The grandparents have taken Bella in order to take advantage of the social security benefits she has in order to help fuel the countless nonsense that the grandparents are involved in. The grandmother specifically has other pending lawsuits, has been arrested for battery charges in the past, and allegedly has a failing liver due to her alcoholic problems, which she has not given up. If you recall earlier, the grandmother views us as complete strangers and not family that has known her for years, yet she will happily take all the social security benefits from Bella's father, who is also Angie's brother. To repeat again, we (me, Angie, and Imani) have not received any help when we took care of Bella, including any social security benefits mentioned here.

 

 

Legal fees road map: (here are the technical details and outlines of both currently and hopefully in the future should we receive any donations.)

 

1/24: We paid a lawyer to file a motion to vacate the temporary custody document that the grandparents were filing (in order to try and permanently adopt Bella).

 

3/24: In March, we successfully had the order vacated. The judge realized upon further investigation that he granted Bella's grandparents the emergency court order with the false information that the grandparents gave him. He reversed the decision but mentioned he does not have the power to forcefully change Bella's living arrangement. And in his words, as of now, the child is in "limbo." Basically, she is up for grabs for anyone who files first.

 

Immediately after the court case, the grandparents filed for what's known as a Private Domestic Interference order (I believe that's the name at least). Basically, there is an alternative route for them to try and get custody of Bella. This is different than the temporary court order that we reversed.

 

As for us, we were in the process of trying to see how much a temporary court order would be after doing a $400 one-hour consultation, and we were quoted a $7500 retainer fee. And now that the grandparents have filed first, if we want to contest it in court, it will likely be another $7500 retainer fee. So to recap, one fee is for us to file a temporary custody, which is the first step towards adoption, and the second fee is now to try and reverse the court order that they filed.

 

As you can probably guess, we do not have $15,000 lying around, and we can either roll over and quit or keep hope alive that we still have a shot. If the first court case taught us anything, it's that it is clear they have no ground they are standing on. They are using lies and manipulation to try to get what they want. The only reason they will win at the end of the day is because we ran out of money to keep fighting.

 

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To wrap this up, we are not a wealthy family. Everyone has their own issues, and we have our own, but regardless of those issues, we want to try and do anything possible to get Bella back into a home that cares for her, that loves her unconditionally, and most importantly, that fulfills her mother's wishes. Times are hard right now for all of us, but if you have it in your heart to even donate $1, anything would help. If you know me, Angie, Imani, or Bella, and any of us have impacted your life in some way or another, please consider helping. We have never done anything like this before, so I'm not sure what to expect. Any donation we receive goes directly to all the legal fees we need to keep fighting and hopefully bring Bella back into our lives. This is our only fighting chance, and we need any help we can get. We love you all, and if you took the time to read this, I am humbled for the opportunity to reach this story out, and I hope you can be a blessing for me and my family today. God Bless.