Hi, my name is Scott, and I am hoping you can help me out with a cheeseburger. Why am I asking you for a cheeseburger? I’m glad you asked. Please read on.
I’m a lucky husband of one, proud father of five. I’m a proud veteran who volunteered to serve my country during the Desert Shield/Desert Storm actions in the middle-east. After receiving an honorable discharge from the US Navy, I returned to my hometown. I’m an old fashioned kind of guy, so it was important for me to return to be close to family.
We moved in to a small home near relatives. Our plan was to get established on our own, and after a few years, move to a larger place nearby with a little more land where we could be a little more self-sufficient and raise our kids where they can run barefoot through the grass and fresh air. A large garden and some small animals, alternative energy, and other ideas were in the plans.
Well, due to various circumstances, the plan never materialized, but it’s not for lack of desire. I’ve worked hard continuously since returning home, not once receiving welfare or unemployment, but working hard and paying my taxes.
As I said, I’m an old-fashioned guy, so it was important to me that my wife be able to stay home to raise our kids. I wanted to provide for our needs while she nurtured our children. This grew into also homeschooling our kids because to me it was important for family closeness and the house we moved into for expedience was not in a great school system. But hey, we were only going to be here for a couple years.
Many more than a couple years have passed. We are now a family of seven, our kids range in age from 17 down to 3. They are well behaved, obedient, respectful kids. I’m very proud of them. I deal with a lot of guilt because my two oldest kids have spent her childhood growing up in our small home on a small city lot. I haven’t been able to give them what I think is the best environment for them, and it troubles me.
It also hasn’t been good for my wife. She has dutifully homeschooled our kids for many years, and she does a good job of it, but we now have 5 kids, and that’s quite a lot of work, as you might imagine. The responsibility has more than once pushed my dear wife to tears, and has become a burden too great that I wish she didn’t have to bear any longer. However, we both feel that sending them to the local school district is not an option. It’s one of the worst ranking school systems in the state, and all too frequently there are reports of violence. Our options are private school or outside school districts, both of which are extremely expensive.
So why don’t we move? We want to! We are in search of a modestly larger home (1700 square feet or so) on 1 to 5 acres of land. We have done a great deal of research and found a nearby school system that is very highly ranked, and moving to a home in that school district would keep us close to our extended family and my work, adding only 5 miles to my commute at most (currently my commute is .8 miles). It would allow us to send the kids to a school system that would give them the quality of education we desire for them, in a safe environment. It would relieve my wife of a lot of stress and worry.
The thing is we have not been able to get ahead of the curve so to speak. Feeding and clothing us all on one salary has proven to be a challenge. We don’t live extravagantly. Our house is 990 square feet. We have not owned a new car since before we were married, buying used to avoid depreciation. Our current vehicles are from the 1996 and 2000 model years. Additionally we have recently had a run of bad luck that coincided with a reduction in medical benefits. I had bills from a recently diagnosed arthritic condition, and my poor wife had to suffer three surgeries to correct a painful kidney condition. All of these procedures were not covered due to a high deductible plan, and I am now at a job where I can’t get medical coverage for the whole family. It would amount to nearly half my monthly pay under the plan available here. We’ve been making due, hoping to remain healthy until we get to a point where we can afford a supplemental plan.
To try to improve our situation, I have enrolled in a school to attain professional certification in my field, in the hopes of being able to earn a higher salary. My wife, as if she doesn’t have enough to do, has also taken on a part time job in the evenings to try to make things better. She works 4 or 5 nights a week, and doesn’t get home until 11:00pm. I honestly don’t know how she does it all. Some days I come home late from work and she is already gone. I then have to eat a quick meal and tell the kids to be good while I go to school until 10:30PM. I'll return home, the kids will be in bed, and I will have to turn in because I start work at 7:00AM. My wife will come home later, and she will be sleeping as I kiss her good-bye in the morning. It's hard.
So we are here, swallowing our pride, admitting we need help, and asking for it. This is where you come in. In the beginning I asked you for help with a cheeseburger. The Internet is a big place, with a lot of good people out there. We are hoping that after reading this you might consider donating the price of a “value meal” at your favorite fast food place, or even just a cheeseburger. With the economy of scale of the Internet, we are asking you to “pay it forward” just a little bit. We’re also asking that even if you don’t wish to help us monetarily, you help us spread the word by letting a few people know about our plight. I’m asking for your help, but I’m not asking for hundreds or even tens of dollars (though if you wanted to send that much, we’d gratefully accept such a generous gesture). I think the average fast food meal is $5 and change. What we are hoping is to collect enough to pay our bills off, including our mortgage, and enable us to move from our too-small city home to a modestly larger place in an excellent school district.
Please consider helping us with a cheeseburger! It’s a low-risk, low-cost “Pay it Forward,” and we will in turn pay it forward. 10% of everything donated will be given to charity or worthy non-profit organizations.
To contribute, click the "Donate" button on the right side of this page. You will be taken to a Paypal form where you can donate from a Paypal account or a credit/debit card.
Thank you very much for your time. Please share this page with others and help us realize a dream of a better life for our family.
http://cheeseburger-charity.blogspot.com/2009/05/cheeseburger-charity_11.html
