The main purpose of this campaign is to help my sister, Leah, raise money in order to retain a lawyer to help in a custody battle with the father of her son, David, who will be 6 years old this month. Leah is a single mother raising two children alone while working full time to provide them everything they could need or want. Leah has always had the best interest of her children in mind whenever making any parenting decisions. Before David was born, Leah was in a relationship with his father, until it turned south and he started becoming both verbally and physically abusive to Leah while she was pregnant with David. There have been police statements and hospital statements provided to the courts to show these instances. She ended things with David's father because she didn't want to raise a child in a toxic environment. Since then, they have co-parented to the best of their abilities, putting David before themselves. His father was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, which is a progressive disorder that inevitably deteriorates a person's physical and mental abilities. This can cause a person to be short tempered, irritable, and not have proper judgement. But as long as he presented a mental health in good standing, Leah had no issue in allowing David to continue being with him for days on end and even allowing his father to use her apartment as a place to go for their after school visits while she worked. Over the last year or so, it seems his father's mental health has been deteriorating and causing him to not make the appropriate parenting decisions while David was in his care. There have been multiple instances now that indicate abuse is happening while David is with his father. The school counselor has become involved due to what David has told her, leading to CPS also becoming involved. From David coming home with a fat lip caused by his father to the school counselor informing Leah that David has told of his father forcing him to drink alcohol. Leah is not trying to take David away from his father, she is just trying to move his visitation to supervised in order to protect David from any further abuse. They originally went into this battle agreeing to not have lawyers and to keep it as civil as possible, but it seems the father has decided to hire legal help now that he has been presented with statements from the school counselor and other character witnesses on Leah's side that question his parenting ability. With Leah being a single mother raising two children on her own, money is tight. Our family is small so between us all, we still wouldn't be able to come up with enough to hire an attorney to help her. We are just trying to protect David from any more abuse that could scar him more than what might have already. Every thing that is raised will only be spent on the lawyer and nothing else. The next court hearing is August 31st, so we are praying to have someone retained by then. David is such a bright and intelligent little boy, we cannot just stand by and watch his light fade due to the abuse. Thank you for reading this and hopefully for contributing to our purpose.
