Thanks to all Who Helped the Friend of A-Space!

For the past several weeks I have been trying to save my grandma's house from foreclosure. As a last resort, on December 6th, I went to the sheriff's sale and put a down payment on her house and I have 60 days from the date of purchase to raise the remainder of the money: $32,000. While making this appeal in some ways places me in a vulnerable position, I am stepping out on faith to make it because I know that faith requires personal action. This email is an appeal to harness our collective resources so that I can raise the rest of the money that I need to ensure that my grandmother is not evicted.

Historically, My grandma Leola’s neighborhood is a working-class Black community, made up of families that moved to Philadelphia seeking economic opportunities and fleeing the domestic terrorism of the Jim Crow South. My great grandfather is a part of that migration. Currently the neighborhood is being gentrified in the form of land grabs by developers and as a community we are once again facing displacement due to institutionalized oppression.

My grandma has lived in her house for 42 years and raised six children there. Many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren, myself included, have lived there for periods of time. My grandma's house is really the center of our family life and my Grandma and Pop Pop worked hard to get it and keep it.  She is the bedrock of our family. She has never missed an important moment in my life and has been a solid backer, a constant friend, and a role model.

While this struggle/tragedy/potential foreclosure has been really hard to deal with, I feel hopeful that we can win,  because for the first time in a long time there are mainstream conversations about the re-distribution of wealth, about bank greed, about the need to organize collectively for our collective survival. We are seeing the coming together of strangers to fight back against foreclosures and assert that housing is human right. Many people are coming to understand what many of us have always known: we are more powerful than systems of oppressions and we survive and thrive because of each other.

My family I will be hustling up funds and hosting fundraisers in Philly, but I am afraid that our efforts alone will not be enough to raise such a large amount of money in a short amount of time. This is where you come in. I am asking folks to donate any amount that they can to help keep this house in my family and ensure that my family is not uprooted.

So please consider giving:

1. no one deserves to be kicked out of their home
2. because community is powerful, more powerful than wall street.
3. one win gives us all hope for more, and fuel to keep on keeping on

Checks or cash can be sent to: Kimberly Murray
                                                   1004 South 49th Street
                                                    Philadelphia, PA 19143

or you can use my Chipin page at : http://lolashouse.chipin.com/preventingforeclosure

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

In the spirit of hope,

Kim Murray