Tarren’s Story

I was born with a rare medical condition known as Hirschsprung’s disease. Long story short, this disease essentially shuts down your colon. I spent the majority of my infancy fighting for my life. Due to its rarity and severity, Motts Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor was the only hospital that had any hope of diagnosing and treating my condition.

The providence of God would have it that my parents had just taken a job in MI managing and living in a group home for troubled youth. This would move them out of their home in WI. However, that job fell through rather quickly after they realized that I was well… dying.

The demands of caring for my condition eventually cost them the job and were left without a place to live. They knew nobody. They had barely a friend to speak of since their lives were completely taken over by a dying infant and a house full of adolescents with serious anger management issues. On top of that, they were now freshly jobless.

As you can imagine, all these circumstances piled up meant that getting an apartment was gonna be near impossible. Enter Love Thy Neighbor. They came to the rescue and helped them get into that first apartment. Because of that leg up, my dad was able to focus on finding a new job and my mom could focus on keeping me alive between hospital visits. I like to think that Love Thy Neighbor played an integral part in saving my life. Had it not been for them, I don’t know what would have happened.

What I do know is that I’m here today and that’s largely in part because of Love Thy Neighbor.

I am thrilled and honored to now have the opportunity for things to come full circle and have a chance to give back to this incredible organization.