Annamarie Patterson is a Brentwood mother of five in desperate need of a double lung transplant. She is in constant pain and her lung capacity is at just 40%.

She says she has been denied the transplant three times because of her housing situation: She lives in a shelter with her children.

The nonprofit Legacy Development Corporation has been helping Patterson. The organization started a GoFundMe to get her housing for a year.

The goal is $30,000 and after News 12 aired Patterson’s story, thousand of dollars were donated.

Lisa Adams, executive director of Legacy Development Corporation, said a News 12 viewer who’d seen the story showed up at her office with a very generous check.

The GoFund me is still thousands of dollars short of the goal as of Wednesday night.

Patterson is hoping for a Christmas miracle. She has a meeting with a hospital in January which she hopes will result in transplant approval.

She says she just wants to see her kids grow up.