I was raised on, and still live by, the Golden Rule!

You will not find a gimmick, or hype, misleading or untrue claims of why I am on this donate site. I simply discovered this gem through research of my own and decided, why not try it out?

A little about me; well I am a 55 year old woman who married at 18 and left her marriage after 20+ years, has 3 children, 14 grandchildren and 1 g-grandchild. I have been unemployed for awhile now after working all my life. To earn my own money I started working fulltime at age 14 as a nurse’s aide before they had to be certified, for $1.60 an hour. I grew up with a mother who did not work outside of the home, a step father who was an auto mechanic (worked on commission) and a very limited family income. So you can probably figure that I was not fortunate when it came to materialistic belongings as a child. I was 6 when my sister was born and 10 when my brother came along, so I had a few years as an only child. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs, my first bicycle was used from Western Auto and I got 25 cents as a weekly allowance for actually “doing my chores every day.” This was alright because I was a very gracious child and appreciated what I got, as I didn’t know any different.

By the time I was 13, my step dad and I started to have communication problems after my parents told me I was adopted and that he wasn’t my father. I had to wait until I was 18 to find out who my father was, which was unfair to me because I found out he lived 13 miles away from me all my life. To say the least, my teen years were nothing to brag about. I lived a very sheltered and restrictive life, I think because my parents didn’t trust me through their own self doubts. I was not going on a first date until I was 16, I wasn’t allowed driving time even though I took Driver’s Ed. in school, my friends were basically chosen for me and I had to be in the house by 9pm and in bed with the lights out by 10pm. I guess you could say I started quietly rebelling against my parents’ “unreasonable authority” and “unnecessary physical discipline” and decided to leave home at 15½, and I also crossed the racial line by being with my best friend, later to be husband, who happened to be black!

We fought many, many battles on both family fronts but we had a good marriage even though it was limited in materialistic things which I always wanted to do better for my kids than I had, and my husband decided that what he didn’t have growing up they didn’t need either, and I was very submissive. So, they didn’t have wardrobes of seasonal clothes, they didn’t get to do a lot of extra-curricular activities in school, they had limited social time, they experienced their parents fighting both physically and mentally over marital things on a daily basis and eventually years later, our family broke up. We never thought ahead or planned for their college education, didn’t save for graduations or weddings or other special events….just lived from day to day. As a result, our children chose the hard path to travel too, by having kids first and going to college second and it has slowed down their progress to a fulfilled and enriched life for their kids.

You see, my story is not much different from any other except that it is mine, and it is personal for me because it is the road I chose to travel to get where I am today!

I am the kind of parent who wants to be there for her children when they need something and I have always felt like I let my children down during their childhood. Now I have grandchildren who I want to provide for and buy for on birthdays and holidays and most of all leave something behind for when I am gone. I need to finish my bachelor degree in healthcare management because I am only 6 months from being done. I am not working so I cannot pay out of pocket, my federal aggregate funding is exhausted and with the work force the way it is I doubt if a 55 year old woman will be the first on anyone’s hiring list, in spite of her experience and wisdom.

I would like to be able to pay off all my children’s’ school loan debt, pay off their mortgages, start a savings for each child to have when they are grown so maybe my grand-kids won’t have it quite so hard as their parents or grandparents did…

I watch the news and am constantly amazed why any one person (adult or child) is without enough food to eat or a warm safe bed to sleep in at night in this country of ours. I wish I could make a difference by building a facility/community home for people who need it and give them a hand up so they can get on their feet again because seriously, we all are only a paycheck from being where they are!

I have a friend who started an organization to protect, rescue and save exploited children in sex trafficking in the United States…I would love to give on a regular basis to him to continue his work at Forsaken Generation!

I would love to take an inner city community here and rebuild and replenish it so people in that neighborhood can be proud of where they live, not live where they have to because it is affordable. I would love to build or purchase property and manage it so people can have a homelike place to raise their children with adequate and safe playgrounds, enough bedrooms, and most of all affordable for those having a hard time finding housing because they don’t make enough or they have too many kids.

My daughter wants to start a little eatery of her own and I know she would be successful at it but it takes a lot of capital to get started…
My older daughter wants to build or create  a community center/video gaming facility where kids have a fun and safe place to go that keeps them off the streets.

My son has a couple of inventions I would love to finance and patent for him

Finally, I think the biggest and most profound thing I want to do is to design (I have drawings on paper) build and operate my own nursing home in honor of my Grandma who passed away while living in one.
My marriage and the small house I lived in at the time she passed would not have been a good place for her to live and be happy. When I spent the day with her on that Thanksgiving before she passed, I never dreamed that would be the last time I would see my Grandma…who was always the love of my life growing up!

I got the call on December 14, 1986, on my oldest daughter’s 12th birthday that she had passed after a final stroke. I couldn’t speak, my heart was in my stomach, tears streaming down my cheeks, and all the strength had escaped my body…nothing since losing my first baby in childbirth could have been more traumatic for me.
Since that day I have lived my life in retrospect thinking about all the things I could’ve, should’ve or would’ve done, or said if I had another chance…but it was too late.

Grandma told me on Thanksgiving that she wanted to come live with me and I, not knowing she was serious brushed her off and changed the subject. The look on her face and the sincerity in her crystal blue eyes when she told me “I’m ready to go home, I want to go home with you” will haunt me until I see her again and can apologize for not taking her home with me to live her last days. I was too ignorant to know what she was telling me, that she knew her time was short…

If I can build my nursing home, the way I want to and dedicate it to her memory then I will feel as though I have given back some of what I didn’t give my grandma when she asked. I know that she went there in the first place so she would not be a burden to her children and she made the best of her situation but it was not her “heartfelt choice.” This home will also be my legacy to my children to operate when I am too old and for my grand children when I am gone to support them and provide for them. My oldest daughter is going into healthcare management, my younger daughter is doing her bachelor for business administration and my son’s wife is getting her BSN in nursing so I will not have to look for help to run my facility and run it right!

In closing, I hope I have supplied you with what you need to feel like I am real and sincere in my request for donations. I would really like to keep track of those who donate to my home because I would like to acknowledge each of them once my nursing home is built. I also want to pay forward any goodness that comes my way and return the donation to you, so that you will be successful both on your journey and in achieving your dream!

God bless each and every one of you for reading my story!