If your child was in danger – if they were hungry, scared, lying on the dirt floor of a tent with no hope for a future – what would you do? You would do anything and everything. You would fight with every fibre in your body to help them, to save them. That is what Ramia did, and she started with a series of Facebook messages to a handful of people in Canada.

Ramia, mother of four, first made contact with Laura-Jean Bernhardson back in January. Ramia presumably tracked her down as Laura-Jean, owner of Toronto fashion boutique Fresh Collective, had received lots of publicity for her great efforts to organize a Syrian Clothing Drive. Ramia had also made contact with several other Canadians who received Canadian press coverage for their efforts in helping the Syrian refugee crisis.

When Laura-Jean first started receiving messages from Ramia in broken English, she wasn’t sure how to respond. “I didn’t know if it was a scam or what it was,” she said. But with unstoppable determination, Ramia continued to message her. “By the second day, I realized this was a real thing.”

While it would be easy to dismiss a plea for help from an unknown person on the other side of the world, Laura-Jean recalls that during those first 24 hours, she couldn’t help but look at her own son, building Lego, heading off to school, relaxing in the evening, and then thinking of Ramia and asking herself: If I were in her place, what would I do? Anything.

“One of the first messages I sent back was, ‘I don’t know how to help you…tell me how to help you.’ She told me to call ‘Siyar.’ I thought maybe that was a family member or someone she know here.” After a few messages back and forth, Laura-Jean figured out that Ramia wanted her to call Siyar Abu Hantash of Canada Today, who has been instrumental in helping Syrian refugees on the front lines of danger.

After more correspondence, Siyar used her connections to help Ramia’s family move from a part of Syria where bombing was imminent, to a refugee camp on the Syrian-Lebanon border.

“It went from ‘There’s nothing I can do to help this woman’ to ‘Maybe there is something we can do,’” says Laura-Jean. Since that first correspondence, Laura-Jean became one of many Canadians who joined a group to help raise 33k in order for Ramia’s family to move to Canada.

Having known Laura-Jean for quite some time – through the Toronto fashion community, Shedoesthecity, and now through our sons – she came to me and asked if Shedoesthecity would be one of the 33k (made up of both individuals and small businesses) to help Ramia and her family. Just like when Laura-Jean first heard from Ramia, I was equally moved – as a fellow human, but certainly as a mother. I too would do anything to move my child out of harm.

This month, Shedoesthecity will be donating $1000 towards Ramia and her family, and I’m challenging our readers to match that donation. All it would take is 33 of you to donate $33 and we’d make that goal. The Facebook group has already raised nearly $25,000 and we need to reach 33k in the next week.

“I think people are inherently good, they want to help, and often it is a simple matter of not seeing how, or not knowing how they can make a difference,” says Laura-Jean. This is a very easy way to directly help a family with four children. (Mohammed Adan is 11, Ghiyath is 10, Sham is 3 and Zein is 2.) By working together to reach our target, these kids may be able to join our country this fall.

Upon hearing how much was already raised, Ramia sent a message to the group of Canadians helping her:

This me Ramia, I have no word to say. Thank you is not enough for all what you did for us. We are so happy. It’s not dream anymore for us you make true, we can stay alive we can live together me my children and husband. I love you all and love Canada good keep you all and your Country safe happy and blessed. I’m so happy and dreaming to become Canadian. I feel I belong to you, you are the one who saved us.

It started with one thread: a mother desperately contacting a stranger to help her children. Join the thread, and let’s see this to the finish line. Impossible is possible when we work together.

Make a donation on the GoFundMe page now.