Posted by panch from pool0282.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.211.27) on Friday, July 19, 2002 at 10:59PM :
Let’s try something. Call it an exercise…call it a “first shot”. Call it something "worthwhile"…not so much for what will actually be achieved at first…but for the direction, the mechanism that might in time allow us to get somewhere better than where we are now.
Many people have suggested a fund…a sort of treasury to dip into for special needs…things to help our people with. It’s too much to ask, or expect, that we’re going to be able to do anything grand and impressive at first. Let’s just say that in the beginning it isn’t about what we might do “out there”…but what we might begin to do in our own minds. The right attitude has to prevail first.
Here’s what I propose…we set up a link with a pay pal option. We ask for ten bucks from each of us interested for the first year…only ten bucks allowed. We see what it grows to. I would think we should raise at least $100 fairly quickly. We ask Tiglath and Doc to find ONE kid or adult who needs something in the way of medical help. I know full well that it isn’t much…but over there it is. If possible, send us a photograph of the person, or something personal…the home, the school, the clinic…something to put a human face on it.
Next we commit ourselves to getting a matching grant…an additional $100 from somewhere other than our own community. It can be another denomination entirely….a synagogue or corporation or Law Firm…or even another individual…doesn’t matter, so long as we begin to think in terms of starting the ball rolling ourselves…but also drawing in other resources. I KNOW this isn’t much…that some grand person might say “Here…you poor slobs…here’s $200, go save Assyria”. But this isn’t about being Grand…it’s about starting at a real grass roots effort to create a way of thinking about these kinds of things.
Our organizations are all built on personality cults. Jackie is “great”…Nimrod is an “ex-Senator”…to really function well, to grow and expand, an organization has to have its own internal dynamic…not be led by a charismatic personality…here today, tired and burned out tomorrow.
We can devote the money to a kid with medical needs, even a Sainted old Mother, or cranky and creaky Grandfather who could use eyeglasses..a walking stick, I don’t know.
In some ways this is about us getting our heads on straight. It’s time. We’ve been in this country for over 100 years. We may not be rich but we don’t have to be poor in spirit just because of that.
It’s open to discussion of course. I don’t imagine we have to bother with incorporation or 501c3 tax status…byL:aws and the rest of it to start…let’s just start.
-- panch
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