For the Love of Rayann

Hello, we are David and Carol Donaldson, married for 39 years with three amazing sons, two of who served in the Army and Marines, six grandchildren (one currently serving in the Navy) and two great grandchildren. David himself is a Navy Veteran and retired contractor. Carol is still working until age 70 when she feels she could possibly retire from her job in accounting.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking the time to consider our request and read the history that leads up to this gut-wrenching plea for help.

We are asking you for financial help to cover horrendous legal expenses being incurred by our youngest son Jeff who needs to establish paternity and acquire full custody of his 11-year-old daughter, Rayann. This child is in extreme danger of being lost forever. Paternity has already been determined with a DNA test resulting in a 99.99% match which one would think to be enough to establish biological fatherhood, but circumstances have reared their ugly heads causing costly legal complications. We have put an initial $5000.00 retainer to hire The Sherwood Family Law Firm to get working on this immediately, as time is of the essence in this case. This money was acquired by taking out a high interest signature loan that will be very difficult to pay back given our fixed incomes but the welfare of this precious child is at stake. We are being told by the Law Firm that we should make provisions for an additional $20,000.00 to $50,000.00 before this is resolved. In the following paragraphs, we will lay out some history leading up to the current situation we are faced with.

To begin with, let us explain how our adorable granddaughter Ryann came into our lives. Our son Jeff met her Mother Danielle at work and they became friends. As time went on, mistakes were made by both however the end result was the greatest gift that they could ever imagine. Danielle chose to allow her husband at that time to believe he was the father knowing there was a strong possibility that Jeff was in fact the biological father but did not want him to know until he was well established with his alcoholic recovery program which lead to not reconnecting with Jeff until 2015 when his daughter was 8 years old. This resulted in her husband being named as the father on the birth certificate. As DNA would show later, our son Jeff is in fact the biological father and is now facing the incredible struggle to get the birth certificate corrected following the sudden death of Rayann’s mother Danielle. Just a side note, since we did not know about Rayann until she was 8 years old, there was little we could do until now.

Since 2015 Danielle and Jeff reached an agreement that a father-daughter relationship should be established. Since that time, we and Jeff have accepted and embraced the building of a relationship with Rayann accepting her as our own and have continually been there for her physically and emotionally. Danielle’s then husband and the father named on the birth certificate took a DNA test to confirm that he was indeed not the biological father. It wasn’t long before Danielle and the girls moved out of the hideous dump, they were living in which has black mold growing up the wall, the roof falling in and the floor falling out from under them, not to mention the cat and dog urine and feces on all of the furniture. According to DHS, not fit for a human to live in but Danielle’s husband refuses to do anything about it to this day.

Rayann’s mother, Danielle was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer the first part of October 2018. She started chemo a few weeks later and was hospitalized a couple of times with pneumonia and other breathing problems with her last and final trip to the hospital on December 11th when he was told she only had 6 months to live. Our son, Jeff was there to assist her whenever he was available between working full time and going to school full time and maintaining a 3.53 GPA. He took Ryann and her sister Fayth to visit with their mother while she was in the hospital. Danielle called Jeff and his mother Carol and asked if we could take the girls after she died and give them a home so they could stay together. Her dying wish was that the girls not be separated. On December 20th, Jeff received the news via text that Danielle now had only hours of her life left and he immediately left work to be by her side for most of that day and night. Carol drove the 50 miles to join Jeff at the hospital to say goodbye to Danielle in her final hours. Rayann and her sister Fayth were also there. Danielle passed at 11:25 pm that night.

While Jeff cared deeply for Ryann’s mother and grieves her passing, his love for her was strictly as a friend. Jeff is focused on his sobriety, getting his degree and being a good father to his daughters. He wants to do everything in his power to help these girls become successful, contributing members to society. He is currently in a counseling/psychology program at the University of Phoenix with the intention of becoming a drug and alcohol counselor or working with children through DHS. He is very close to his Bachelor’s Degree and will then move on to his Master’s Degree, which is a financial strain for now.

Recently, our son Jeff has also done a DNA test with a 99.99% match as the biological father of Rayann. Since the death of her mother, Rayann has been taken by a great-aunt on her mother’s side of the family and they refuse to accept or acknowledge that Jeff is the biological father or that we are family to her at all. They have in fact been moving her from place to place and hiding her from us and they will not allow us to see or speak to her anymore.

We are now facing a very nasty legal battle to get the birth certificate changed and for Jeff to gain custody of his daughter and get her the help and therapy she so desperately needs. Because of the rareness and difficulty of this legal court battle, we are being told that it may cost as much as $50,000 dollars when all is said and done. We have never ever asked for help before but are now desperately asking this one time for help to raise the funds needed to continue the quest to win this legal war we have been thrown into. Please, if you could find it in your hearts to help us out with a donation, we would be eternally grateful. May God Bless Us All.