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Help,    I am so desperate to try to help my 11-year-old daughter Mikaylee have a decent Christmas. Mikaylee is such a sweet child.  She does not go to school but is home schooled to help care for 98 and 93-year-old great-grandmothers and for me. She does the chores, visits with the elderly, reads and draws pictures for them. She says all she wants for Christmas is a turkey dinner and a drawing pad (she wants to be an engineer and work for Disney. I can't even get her the turkey dinner. Over the past 6 years, Mikaylee has been with the family as we have been through the legal proceedings because her sister, Cassandra, (a 16 year old virgin at the time) was drugged and gang raped by my students (I taught Chemistry and Physics).  The DA said he would not prosecute the boys for rape because they were from “fine families and just made some stupid mistakes” We started civil proceedings. Our minister who was counseling Cassandra at the time committed suicide.  Cassandra went on a self-destructive period, which ended up with her on the streets and us looking for her at all hours of the night.  That is over now thank God and she is in college clean and sober, but is living with a 60ish old man who does not want her to see her family.  My husband and I have had 2 cancer scares, we have lost our home we built and everything we've owned because of high medical, psychological and legal bills, and her father has had a nervous breakdown. We moved to Louisiana after the Hurricanes to help family members rebuild (my husband was a builder).  Last year before Christmas I was hit by a car, suffer spinal injuries, and can barely walk.  Now Mikaylee is afraid to leave to leave my side to go to school, to friends houses, to church, anywhere and she stays home from school to care for the elderly great-grandparents and me.  We now live in a one-room garage apartment.
  Mikaylee is thankful to get a package of gum and hand me down socks. Mikaylee is my best friend; she gives me hope and tries to help me feel better when the pain is so bad.  Just as I want to give up, she is there with a handful of picked flowers, a picture and a story to help me laugh.  Please, I know you know many groups that help with things like this.  Please help Mikaylee have one good Christmas! Please if you cannot help, point me to some group or someone who may.
 Thank you and God bless you, 
  Dana Petty (Mikaylee's mom and best friend)
www.dana-petty@hotmail.com or 110 West 4th St   DeRidder, LA 70634