Help Daniela!

Pictured above are Daniela and her three children: Daniela (age 9), Brandon (age 6) and Evelyn (age 4). Daniela and her family are in a difficult situation, and David Armano (VP Experience Design at Critical Mass, a Chicago-based marketing and design agency) is trying to rally some help for her.

Daniela is a Romanian immigrant who divorced her husband after years of physical abuse. Her youngest daughter Evelyn has Down Syndrome. She makes very little money cleaning houses and lost her house when her mortgage went unpaid.

David and his family have taken Daniela and her family into their home. They’re trying to get her an apartment through a fundraising drive. The goal is to collect at least US$5,000 so that she doesn’t have to worry about rent or a deposit while trying to improve her situation.

Here’s a photo taken inside David’s garage that shows everything that Daniela owns in the world:

David wrote in his blog post about about Daniela that he understand that getting donations in these tough economic times is difficult. In spite of that, he’s asking people to make donate even just a little money to help Daniela out.

I would argue that in times like this, it’s even more important to make an effort to perform acts of kindness. Pulling together and helping each other, especially those of us who are most vulnerable, is how we’ll all ride out the Credit Crunch. As Douglas Rushkoff wrote in his essay Riding Out the Credit Collapse:

The more we are willing to do for each other on our own terms and for compensation that doesn’t necessarily involve the until-recently-almighty dollar, the less vulnerable we are to the movements of markets that, quite frankly, have nothing to do with us. 

As of my writing this, David’s campaign has raised over $9,000 for Daniela. Even though he’s raised nearly twice the target amount for Daniela, I would still suggest that you make a donation if you can. $5,000 isn’t going to last very long, and with three kids, Daniela will have expenses other than rent to worry about.

To make a donation to Daniela’s fund, click here to see David Armano’s blog article.

[Thanks to Jay Goldman, whose Twitter message led me to David Armano’s blog.]