Devastating Forest Fire

Laury Reynoso is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Hello everyone. My name is Laury, and my husband’s name is Victor. On November 8, 2018, a devastating forest fire in Paradise, CA wiped out our town of 30 thousand and killed 85 people. Most got out, but we were not one of them. We were trapped with our doggies in a tiny parking lot with toxic smoke, lit embers, and fire surrounding us. My husband and I prayed that it would be the smoke that took us instead of the flames because we really didn't think we would survive that day. But by Gods grace, we did, and for that we are very grateful and feel blessed.

It’s been a long haul since then, over 5 years now and after living in subsidized housing for almost 2 years we knew that once that resource ran out we would be facing homelessness not being able to even afford a rental on our Social Security income. DIY building a small house on our property was the only way we could ever hope to afford a home to live in again.

With limited funds, we decided to move forward and pray for the strength to make it happen. At my age (70’s now), crazy as it sounded to us, we knew that building ourselves was our only option. We’ve been living in my youngest sons RV parked on our lot and managed OK until now. But, when the RV finally broke down we were forced to move into our unfinished home that's barely in survivable condition.

The issue that brought us to Go Fund Me is that my husband has recently become quite ill and I am so broken from injuries during this endeavor that I can hardly get out of bed in the morning. We are 95% done but our health and strength have run their course. I thought we could do it but because of these circumstances I cry every morning knowing that we are so close but are no longer in the condition to finish the last little bit. 3 1/2 years of trudging forward has mentally and physically torn us up so much that we barley get anything done from day to day. We are realizing that we need to hire help to finish and are facing loosing everything we have and worked so hard to accomplish. It’s all caught up to us and we are stuck.

As DIYers, the money is just not there to hire anyone. Our bodies and minds have let us down. We can't get a small reverse mortgage if it’s not complete. I dream of living out the rest of our days here and if our health had held, we would be done by now. At this late point we are desperate and hope that just maybe someone out there might have the resources to donate to our cause.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I pray that some of you can help me make this request go viral.

Love, Laury & Victor Reynoso

P.S. In the beginning I accounted for a contingency like this, but the power company filed bankruptcy against all who filed a suit. Our award governed by a Trust ended up being shorted by 30% which is why we are in such a precarious situation.