My name is Fiona. I am a young mother of three boys, 13, 9 and 4. My husband and I have worked hard our whole married life to provide a secure and loving home for our boys. On top of the typical finacial struggles of living in vancouver my husband Simon was diagnosed last year with wet macular degeneration. He is rapidly losing his eye sight, and will be eventualy legaly blind from the condition. We took the news as well as possible and pulled together as a family. We knew that we were going to need to adjust our plans for the future and begin to save as much a possible because we were definatly going to be in need of a rainy day fund. We decided to move from our modest townhouse into a small apartment to be able to save on rent and in the hopes to build up a small safety net as we were not sure how long my husband would be able to continue to work in his trade. To try to save on expensive moving costs we replied to a craigslist posting advertising reasonably priced moving help. The gentleman seemed friendly and agreeable and the plans were made. Moving day came and we said goodbye to our home, it was a teary moment but we knew that as long as we were all together anywhere we were would be home. The truck was packed and we jumped in the car to meet the movers at the new apartment. We arrived first, and got the doors open and ready etc, and waited. and WAITED.... starting to get concerned I began to call the number I had for the mover. It kept going to a generic mailbox. I figured ok he is driving so he cant answer. We had no choice but to continue to wait. It became clear that either some kind of accident had occured or we had just had every possesion we owned drive off. It turned out to be the latter. These gentlemen and i use the term losely, had pulled the same scam on several other ppl before dissapearing. We had every worldy possesion in that moving truck, no savings, and an empty apartment. I cant even begin to describe trying to explain the situation to my children, the younger two especialy. They were understandably heartbroken over there possesions, but seeing there faith in other people so shaken pained me even more than seeing them morn there belongings. The whole event has been a developing tradgety in our home, the more I thought about it the more i realized we lost, from the basics needed to just live, to the sentemental. My wedding dress, baby clothes, picture albums. It just got worse and worse as the reality of the loss set in. We have been trying our very best to replace the nessesites for our boys, but we are having a very hard time. I had no idea the kind of cost that would be involved until sitting down and calculating even the cost for one of the kids to get a pair of shoes, coat, two outfits, pj's, toothbrush, bed, linens, towel, school supplies, backpack, and we have to times all of it by three and then the same for my husband and myself. We are still in a prodominantly empty apartment and trying the best we can to purchase a new outfit for each child, a few kitchen and bathroom supplies etc per pay period. Needless to say there wont be much of a christmas for our kids this year but I will do my best. We still have each other and that is the most important gift we could ask for. I decided to reach out to our community because I want to show my kids that they can have faith in people and that the majority of the world leads by love not hate and gives not takes. We have always supported our community even thou we have never had much more than just enough, and I am praying that in our time of need we will be blessed by recieving some support in kind. I know times are hard for alot of people especialy around the holidays so blessings to all and I thank you for taking the time to hear our story and thank anyone who is able to lend a hand. Happy Holidays from our family to yours.
