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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Wish Upon a Hero Donations

If you have found my blog from the Wish Upon A Hero website, thank you so much for visiting and welcome. If you want to view my wish, click here. This blog post will also make more sense if you start there first.

 Although I don't get the time to post here as much as I would like, you can learn more about me here and I will also provide a link to Care Chest, the organization that helped me get my accessible van. I didn't have the space on Wish Upon A Hero to explain everything about my van loan so I will add a little more info here.

Care Chest is not a financial institution and does not normally handle the actual loan themselves. But they did arrange for Nevada State Bank to handle my low income loan originally. When I first started making my van payments, I was in a committed, long-term relationship with my daughter's father and so there were two incomes in my home. Unfortunately, he decided to leave the relationship a few years ago. I had to file bankruptcy and surrender my home because I could not afford the mortgage on my own. I was also worried about how I would make my van payments after paying rent, utilities and other necessary living expenses.

Fortunately, I had found a great writing job with a site called LoveToKnow. My background with the home decor business and my knowledge and passion for design and decorating brought me a wonderful opportunity to become a contributing writer on subjects such as interior design, bedding, antiques and furniture. This job was such a blessing because it guaranteed enough money to make my van payment each month. If it had only lasted a little longer, my van would be paid off by now or very close to it.

Care Chest had to actually take my loan over from the bank because I missed a payment or two while going through the evaluation process for my job. I resumed payments until all of us contributing writers at LoveToKnow received the devastating news that the site was losing money because of the Google Panda updates and all work would be stopping while the site went through the process of changing formats. For me, this meant a loss of about $400 a month in income. LoveToKnow did offer to keep me on as a design expert for their new advice format. While I really enjoy giving advice to the people who write in with decorating questions, I only make one fourth of what I was paid to write articles. Unfortunately, it's just not enough.

Since it has been so hard to find another writing job that can guarantee as much work as I had with LoveToKnow, I decided some extra credentials might help me find more work. Because a degree in Interior design is soooo expensive and I'm just not ready to take on 80,000 in student loan debt, I am taking classes on Interior decoration. The schooling is much less expensive and at least I'll get my foot in the door on an industry that I love.

I was hoping that the donations from Wish Upon a Hero could go straight to Care Chest but after submitting my wish request, I discovered it is set up differently. If you are interested in helping me save my wheelchair accessible van, you can always contact Care Chest directly, give them my name, Michelle Radcliff, and ask if they will accept a donation to help me pay down the balance left on my van. I will be contacting them soon myself to inform them about my decision to ask for help.

I have never publicly asked for financial help and this was not an easy thing to do. However, I will so much appreciate the universe,  God, and all others who bring me what I need to continue to have a healthy, happy, joy filled life full of freedom and adventure.

Thank you for reading.