I’m about to ask for your help raising $5,437 before my midnight deadline.

But first, it is important you understand why I ran to serve one of the most diverse districts in the country, where there’s been a serious lack of investment and most people can’t afford an unexpected $300 expense. I’m fighting for the people of this country who politicians have failed time and time again. People who deserve better.

People like my mom and abuela. My mother and grandmother came here from Cuba during the freedom flights in the late 1960s. What my family had to go through just to eat and have a roof over their heads, is a testament to the resilience and drive of immigrants. But it is also an incredibly sad story. What would it have been like if our country was committed to equity when moving here? If money wasn’t an issue? If she had not been exploited by Miami factories that had her working 70+ hours a week for almost nothing. Where would our people be?

People like my biological mother. A victim of the system and enmeshed in trying circumstances, she turned to drugs and crime while pregnant with me.

She had no access to healthcare and wasn’t able to see a doctor once during her pregnancy.

In the wealthiest country in the world, she was neglected by society and left without anyone to turn to. As the mother of seven, she made the difficult decision to put me up for adoption because she lacked the resources to care for and raise another child.

People like my barber. He was deprived of his right to vote due to a 20 year old felony. He committed a crime of desperation, served his debt to society, and became a successful businessman. Yet he still couldn’t participate in our democracy.

I’m so very proud that while working at the ACLU, I organized the movement that restored voting rights to 1.6 million Floridians with previous felonies. But there is so much work to be done.

People like Josh. A houseless man I met when I was pumping gas last year. One of my campaign buttons rolled out the door when I was getting out of the car. He picked it up and asked “who is Maxwell Alejandro Frost?” I told him it was me and we got to talking about what I hoped to do if I was elected. He couldn’t conceive of the possibility of Medicare for All and healthcare as a human right, because he hadn’t been to the doctor in years. He asked me “what do I have to do to deserve healthcare?”

This system that makes life more difficult for the most vulnerable among us is no accident, John. It is by design. And the people who want to keep it that way will spend countless sums of dark money to stop any chance of progress we have.

Thank you so much for your support,

Maxwell Frost