Mom Loses Her Job After Son’s Health Scare. She Was Shocked by What Swifties Did Next (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Lisa Fleming, a 49-year-old mom of four, has channeled her love of Taylor Swift into a business venture to raise money for her family as she takes care of her son with complex medical needs

• She tells PEOPLE that, after launching an Etsy shop selling friendship bracelets, the online Swiftie community embraced her with open arms

• “They’ve been amazing — just the most genuine, caring and supportive group of people,” says Fleming of the fandom

“I’ve been a fan since the beginning,” 49-year-old mom of four Lisa Fleming tells PEOPLE about her love of Taylor Swift.

She was there when the singer was a young country star trying to make it big in Nashville. And she continued to watch as Swift released a string of iconic albums, becoming the biggest pop star on the planet.

“My family says, ‘Oh, she’s an off-the-rails Swiftie,’ ” Fleming continues. “But how can you not be?”

The Grammy winner’s music has always soundtracked her life, but Fleming says there’s one album that has resonated more than any other — catching her at the most vulnerable moment of her life.

In September 2023, her adult son, who has lived his entire life with cerebral palsy, developed a ruptured esophagus and was airlifted to an Orlando hospital hours away from their home, where he needed around-the-clock care.

Amid the life-changing terror of her son’s medical complexities and losing her job because she had to spend so much time by his bedside, Swift dropped her 10th album Midnights — and it became Fleming’s lifeline.

“I was listening to it during a really hard time, and it was keeping me uplifted,” she says.

As the weeks in the hospital turned into months, Fleming was searching for a way to bring joy to her son and the other kids in the ward. Halloween was approaching, and many kids couldn’t have candy; some couldn’t even get out of their hospital beds. But one iconic line from the new album kept ringing in her ears: “Make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it” off of the Midnights track “You’re On Your Own, Kid.”

“So I started making bracelets,” says Fleming, simply.

Some had Swift’s lyrics, like those fans would later bring and trade en masse at the pop superstar’s record-breaking Eras Tour. Others featured other messages of “awareness” and “positivity” about various medical conditions.

“I got to the point where, for Halloween last year, I dressed up in my sparkly Chiefs attire and my sparkly boots, I made bags and bags full of friendship bracelets, and I went out to the neighborhood and I gave them to the kids,” she says. “You know, everyone loves Taylor Swift.”

When Fleming and her son returned home after their hospital stay, things were very different for their family. Their two-income household had dropped to one, and Fleming’s son required more in-home medical equipment, multiplying their family’s expenses.

“There are a lot of costs, and the insurance doesn’t provide when you’re caring for a person who has such significant needs,” says Fleming. “We [found ourselves] in a tough spot.”

Fleming was still her son’s full-time caretaker. But during her spare moments, she holed up in her “studio” — a work station adorned with her guitars, framed photos of Swift and, of course, thousands of beads — and kept working on making bracelets.

“That’s what I’ve been doing all morning,” she says. “That’s what I’ll be doing the rest of the night.”

In July 2024, she opened her Etsy shop, Long Story Short Bracelet Co., and a community of Swifties online immediately embraced her with open arms. Bigger creators in the Swiftie community on Instagram and TikTok who found her accounts used their own platforms to try and share her story as far and wide as they could.

“They’ve been amazing — just the most genuine, caring and supportive group of people,” she says. “It only took me talking about my son very briefly for everyone to just jump in. They’re like, ‘We can do this. We can all rally together and get your story out there.’ ”

Since her launch a year and a half ago, she’s sold thousands of items and received hundreds of glowing reviews on her shop. And on a GoFundMe — which she started to raise the upwards of $80,000 her family needs to purchase a wheelchair van to be able to travel together as a family — dozens of sympathetic Swifties have donated $13, a nod to Swift’s favorite number and the community that brought them all together.

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“I can’t say enough about the camaraderie and the friendship that is genuinely there,” says Fleming.

She also gushes about Swift herself and the star’s regular visits to hospitals to meet and greet with kids receiving care.

“It’s so heartwarming for me to see all of the visits to children’s hospitals she has done and the difference it makes in their lives,” says Fleming. “It’s so important to bring awareness to kids who are going through things that most people don’t ever have to think about. I’m very grateful to be a part of that community.”

Read the original article on People