Share This Campaign:
Im writing you to ask for your help for my partner and the family that has taken care of me, fed me and loved me especially in my hardest year in grad school. My goal is to raise $3,000 to send Lolo, her mother Lolita and Lolos daughter to Mexico to finally reunite with family they lost 34 years ago. I also want to use this experience to fight domestic violence and child abuse as well as create spaces for healing and support from our community.
After many years of searching and hoping, on December 3 my partner Maria Dolores "Lolo" Zamora finally found her four brothers and sisters and spoke to two of them for the first time on the phone. They were all lost to Lolo and her mother, Lolita 34 years ago when Lolita asked her family for help escaping from a violently abusive husband. He threatened to kill her and the three female children and showed her the ditch he was digging to bury them in. She was able to convince him to let her leave for a weekend with Lolo, who was the baby, but he insisted that the other children remain at home.
Sadly, her family was not supportive of her need to leave the relationship, and when she and Lolo returned home they found her four other children and husband gone. After receiving more threats on her life Lolita left Mexico for the United States with Lolo.
Once in the US, Lolita and Lolo struggled to make a life on their own, working hard and always searching from afar for Lolos sisters and brothers. Lolita re-married a man who became abusive and threatened to call INS to deport her if she didn't do as he said. After many years, Lolo and Lolita got their citizenship papers under the Amnesty in the 80's which gave Lolita the strength to leave him. Today my partner, her daughter and Lolita are filled with joy after almost losing hope of ever finding their family.
Here are the words of my partner Lolo:
"I always wanted siblings. Now I have ten! Six half brothers and sisters and four brothers and sisters who now call me hermanita. I am so blessed, so blessed. I just need to express so much silence, so much heartache, so much loneliness. Friends, I am so overwhelmed right now. I just gave the news to my mom and she is crying. I have never seen her cry like this and thank all of her santitos because she never stop praying for my siblings. I am shaking and can't stop shaking.
My entire focus right now is to gather funds to travel to Mexico as soon as possible. My mother and I need to see our family and reunite. You have no idea what my father did to our family and the way my mother had to run away and leave behind her babies. I found them on Facebook and I have never met them. We left when I was a baby and still in diapers but all four were babies themselves (6,5,4,3 yrs old at the time). Thirty-five years later I found them and never ever gave up hope. All of them suffered the wrath of my father after we left but fortunately they do not blame my mother for leaving and also never gave up hope of one day seeing us. This special event has changed our entire lives forever."
While Lolo and her mother are desperate to travel to Mexico to be with their rediscovered family, they also face major challenges to raise the necessary funds for the trip. Lolo is the sole provider for her mother and daughter, so they must raise the money any way they can. Of course I am fully committed to helping make this dream come true!
Please consider contributing to their fundraising efforts in one or more of the following ways:
Donate directly here to fund the travel costs. You can donate $100, $50, $25, or whatever you have! Any amount will get Lolo and her mother closer to Mexico
Donate international travel miles
Donate an item or service of value to the silent auction that I am organizing to raise funds for the trip
Sign up for a shift at the fundraiser Feb 12, 2011
Offer me other fundraising suggestions!
I appreciate your ideas and any resources you can offer.
With much love and humility your friend,
Maya
