Over the past couple years, my sister, through diet and exercise alone, has lost more than 160 pounds. She recently lost another couple hundred pounds, as her divorce was just finalized. 
That leaves her as a single mom (kids are 20 and 22 and only one still lives with her) working a couple jobs to make ends meet. Her employer just changed medical insurance carriers and the new plan excludes skin removal surgery under any circumstances. (The previous plan would pay if she had several years of medical issues documented as a result of the excess skin folds. She was about 3/4 of the way to approval when her employer changed insurance plans.) She has filed an appeal, but doesn’t expect that to go anywhere really.
The excess skin causes rashes and is often raw and sore. It really hinders her mobility and of course, looks terrible. She’s only 45 but cannot see how she could possibly find another partner when she A) feels so terrible about her body she doesn’t want anyone to see her naked, ever, and B) who wants to be with a woman who has 40-50 pounds of loose, sagging skin hanging off of her, all over? (I wouldn’t blame any guy for that being a terrible turnoff and even if there was a great single man who could get past that, I don’t think she could.) Her doctor just cleared her as having stabilized her weight sufficiently and as having lost enough that she’s approved as a candidate for about three surgeries, which will amount to a full-body lift by the time it’s all said and done. She’s barely scraping by as it is, with her two jobs (and her at-home son works and pays his own bills as well), so she cannot afford to apply for Care Credit and make payments. She doesn’t have a car payment nor does she waste money on nonsense (e.g., she’s not out getting her nails done every Friday while sipping on $8 coffees).
So we’re tying to come up with fundraising ideas to help her come up with the money. I think she’ll need somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-60K. If this were you, how would you go about it?
Note: We’ve looked into much less expensive surgeries in Brazil and my major reservation about that is the 9-hour flight home with a body full of drains and stitches. I’d so much rather she get the surgery closer to home and she lives in a city where there is an obesity specialty clinic that does these types of surgery. Doctors who specialize in this sort of thing are right down the road from her, but the cost is simply totally out of reach.
One idea I had was to approach her gym about sponsoring and hosting a “thon” of some sort. She and her gym buddies go collect pledges and then will do a Zumba-thon, or a treadmill-thon or something-thon to get donations (Say, $0.05 per mile wearing a pedometer for 30 days or $1.00 per mile for two hours on a treadmill or whatever.)
We’ve found a couple of personal fundraiser websites, like this one, where you post your story, promote it on your social networking site pages, and people can donate.
Opinions? Fundraising ideas? Thoughts on medical tourism? How can I help my sister feel as beautiful on the outside as she is on the inside? How can I help her finish her journey from obesity to rockin’ healthy body?