Help us move back to home to family Fund

Hello family, friends, and friends we haven't met yet.

We are the Poag family, Cody, Christina, and Paloma. A husband, wife, and daughter living with our three cats (Reginald, Darren, and Munchkin) in Toronto Canada on a work visa from the USA. We've been living here in Canada for nearly 10 years, but sadly everything that has been happening has made it clear that its time for a change for us before its too late.

I work in the VFX industry and, sad to say, life has been extra hard for us the last 4-5 years as it has been for many others. Covid-19 shut down so many things and industries and I was out of work for a bit over a year and that ate into what little savings we had at the time. I was lucky enough to be able to get back to work and we could start saving up and getting back to normal again. But misfortune struck us, and many others, again. The Hollywood writers strikes last year obviously affected many parts of the industry, and VFX was no exception. There was an immediate slow down of work coming in and since it dragged on for so long even that eventually dried up to nothing. I was laid off in the beginning of February this year and have been unable to find work since. It's not that my skills have suddenly gotten worse, the work is simply not there as the whole industry is still trying to get back to it.

But as you can imagine, its taking quite some time. It IS bouncing back, but slowly. The speed of the bounce back as well as some soul searching about our feelings and what the future will likely look like for us has make us come to the realization that its time for a full change/ pivot. And so we will be moving back to the US and trying anew with the help of our family.

Unfortunately for us, this comes at a pretty bad time financially because, like I said above, this whole situation has completely depleted our savings and then some and we have some things that need doing before we can go. We need to do a few things before we can go, most importantly getting the paperwork we need for our daughter filled out and submitted. We also need to get our 3 cats checked out and have their vaccines updated witch will be costly as its all three of them that need it as we haven't been able to take them in for a while. And then just the general stuff we need to do before a move: packing, throwing out/ selling things things we don't want to/ need to bring, talking to our doctors and Paloma's school for any records we need to take with us, and then obviously a moving truck/ U-haul to get us all where we're going.

It adds up.

And so we've come here to ask for help. We probably don't need much by most standards on this site, but we really need the help. Any amount you can chip in will be GREATLY appreciated and will go directly to any fees or costs needed for the move and things we need to finalize before we go.

All the best:

Cody, Christina, Paloma, Reginald, Darren, and Munchkin Poag