AN ANNOUNCEMENT! MATCHING FUNDS FOR JEN!

Photo copyright Jen Havens, 2025; all rights reserved.

AN ANNOUNCEMENT!  MATCHING FUNDS FOR JEN!

Y'all know I've been helping Jen, who runs Taos Hound Underground, with her crowdfund to get urgent repairs made to her truck: specifically, a whole new [rebuilt] transmission and four new tires.  Jen uses her truck not only for her so-called day jobs and personal stuff, but also for everything THU needs. It's a lot of wear and tear, and it's uncompensated, and now, with two huge things going wrong simultaneously?

She's got to get it fixed.

She's over halfway to the $6,300 goal already. She still needs $2,605. And I've just been contacted by a potential donor with a proposition: If we can raise $1,300 between now and midnight Wednesday, May 14th, they will match it dollar for dollar!  That's $2,600, and we only need to raise half of it! [Hell, I'll put in the lat $5 myself.]

WE CAN DO THIS.  Here's her crowdfunding link.  Go share that with everyone you know.  I'm sticking $20 in it now; if 65 people match that, it's DONE.

Here's that link again. Go share, match our $20 if you can, LET'S DO THIS!

All photos copyright Jen Havens, 025; all rights reserved; all text copyright Wings and Aji, 2025; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.   

UPDATE #15: IT'S DONE!!!! Sometimes our own need help. This is family.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

UPDATE 15:  Third update today, and this is the last one.  WE DID IT!!!  Thank you, thank you, to everyone who donated, shared, boosted, or otherwise supported this effort.  [Now she just has to build up her inventory and figure out all the ins and outs of launching her business, LOL.]  Seriously, thank you all so much, from Lee and her family, and from Wings and me.

YUP!  WE ONLY NEED TO RAISE ANOTHER $67!  SO CLOSE NOW!

$293 raised just since this went up late last night!  As of today, and a very big donation from a dear friend, we are at $838 $988 $1,848 STILL $1,973 $2,273 $2,373 $2,423 $4,423 raised just since two Thursdays ago! Thank you, everybody; thanks to your generosity, Lee was able to order her son's laptop. That leaves $4,707 $4,162 $4,012 $3,152 $2,727 $2,627 $2,577 with only $577 left to raise to cover LeeAndrea's own laptop and other equipment and Internet service so she can work from home while schooling her son, so please continue to share, and give if you can. Ideally, I'd like to raise another $700 $600 today, so that she can order M's laptop; school's been in session for two weeks already, and we don't want him to fall behind for lack of necessary technology. This is the harder part, raising the funds so Lee can transition to running her own business online, but it has to happen. She was injured recently at work, and she can't keep doing this. Please help us get her the tools to continue working from home and keep her family well and safe. We should have been able to raise another $1,000 over the long weekend, but progress has stalled entirely. Can we make it happen this week? I'll bump this to the top every day with an update.

It's been a brutal year and a half here. Sometimes our own need help.

At the moment, it's an Indigenous family very close to us who needs our help: our niece, Lee Andrea Trujillo, and her husband and sons. [For those of you who remember Roy, Lee is his youngest daughter; if you remember Ona, who walked on last May, this is his sister.] We're trying to help her raise $5,000 for her youngest son's educational needs and her own work. It will cover four pieces of necessary equipment and all the associated costs that go with them: two laptops, a digital camera, and a replacement for Lee's broken cell phone. [Hence the image above; the relevance of the earrings will become clear shortly.]

If we had the kind of money that would allow us just to give her everything she needs? We'd do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, we don't have it, either. So I promised her I'd do my best to raise it, so that she and her family have what they need this coming school year (which is already in session here). We need to raise enough to 

If you want to donate without scrolling through all the details, you can do that here, via PayPal:  leebtru [at] yahoo [dot] com. Don't forget to check the "friends and family" box so that she doesn't lose part of your donation to fees.

Now, the backstory: 

Lee's youngest son, M, is too young to be vaccinated (like us, the rest of her family got their vaccinations long ago). He also has asthma, and common colds are dangerous enough for him as it is. COVID-19? No chance. She's homeschooling him now because it's the only way to keep him safe. That's one more layer of labor, and it makes it harder to work outside the home. More immediately, M's small tablet won't handle all the complexities of his school assignments and interactions; for that he needs a full-scale computer, one with the usual bells and whistles that will make Zoom and other things workable. They can't afford to buy him one.

Lee Andrea has consulted the hardware and software requirements, and has found one via Amazon that will do the job well, and leave M with room to grow, so to speak, as a student. You can see the model here; it's a small [in size] MacBook with enough memory, hard drive space, and speed for M to be able to do all the work he needs in the years to come. That retails for $1,349, but that's before insurance, sales tax, shipping, and whatever other cabling and apps he may need. By the time all that's added on, you can figure well over $1,500.

But that's not all she needs now.

Lee Andrea and her family are like us: They've always worked, and worked hard. But it's hard enough for Indigenous people at the best of times, and these are nowhere near the best. But in addition to losing her brother last year to West Nile (a tragedy that was extremely costly for the whole family), we've had a year and a half of uncontrolled deadly pandemic. Work is hard to come by. Among the other things she does to help support her family, Lee cleans people's houses, and that's heavy labor, hard on her body under any circumstances. Now, with COVID-19 and far, far too many people refusing to get vaccinated or wear masks or distance, any of the most minimal things that are part of being a decent human and decent member of society? It's downright dangerous. [We have both a state-wide and a local mask mandate here, and a trip to the dentist today showed us that most people are ignoring it. Meanwhile, state-wide, there are already at least 50 people on a waitlist for an ICU bed, any ICU bed in a hospital anywhere. We're averaging 700-1,000 new reported cases state-wide per day again, and that's only the reported ones; the real number is much higher.]

Anyway, this shows you what it's like trying to work here in any kind of public-facing capacity. And Lee's at the point where her body no longer needs the physical punishment of that kind of labor anyway. But she has another option, IF we can get her the equipment she needs to make a go of it.

Lee Andrea is a brilliant beadwork artist. The four pairs in the photo above? Are all by her. Those are part of my own collection; in fact, I wore the white/turquoise pair on the left when we went to the dentist today. Her work is very tight, very clean, beautifully stitched, with wonderful gradients and contrasts — and it always, always gets compliments. Now, what if she had the chance to work from home, build inventory, and sell her work online? How much better and safer would that be for everybody?

So. I've promised to help walk her through the logistics of setting up a site, photographing her work and writing descriptions for it, and promoting it online. But she can't do that without the proper equipment. So that's the purpose of the second laptop [same model as M's], one that will devoted exclusively to her work and to building her own online business. [And with that, we're already up to well over $3K.]

But in addition to the laptop, she needs a digital camera. She's found one she's comfortable with, here. A little over $200 for the camera, but again . . . extended warranty, sales tax, shipping, etc. on top of that. And then there's the broken cell phone, out of warranty, can't be repaired, and she needs a decent one to be able to stay in touch with her husband and sons and the rest of the family, and potentially to be able to adapt it for use with her work. The replacement model? More than $700 just for that. Sales tax and so forth, round up to near $800, and suddenly we're already at $4K.

But there are always eventualities no one can predict. I personally have no idea how much insurance on the two laptops and the warranty for the camera will run, but she needs that layer of protection. I do know it won't be cheap. I also don't know how well her current Internet set-up will work, either for her work or for M's school needs, so that may require an upgrade. And the this is only the second week of school here; M may well wind up needing to buy additional software/apps throughout the year for various subjects. And so I've suggested she set her goal at $5K, so that if we've forgotten something, or something entirely new but essential crops up, it's covered.

It's a modest goal, one that should be easily reachable if we work at it. We're in for the first $100 right now. If 50 people match us, she's covered. If 100 people can give $50 each, it's covered. This is family; please help us help our own cover school and work needs now, when local resources are so scarce.  Here's that PayPal address again:  leebtru [at] yahoo [dot] com. And even if you can't donate, please share the link, because the more eyes on it, the quicker we can fund it and get their family's school and work needs met.

As I said, this is family. Wings and I will take any help for them as a personal favor. Thanks to everyone in advance.

UPDATE 45: LAST DAY! Need to raise $2K still; match our donation? For JoanMar, Shelter, Warmth, and Light

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

UPDATE 45: About $400 in new donations in the last day.  We still need to raise about $2,000  (actually, about $2,150, I think, to cover all the various platforms' fees). Wings asked me to donate $100 out of his Social Security now toward the effort, and I have. IF 22 PEOPLE MATCH OUR $100 DONATION, IT'S DONE. We can DO this, and WE NEED TO DO IT NOW. 

Folks on other platforms?  THIS IS THE POST THAT YOU NEED TO LINK TODAY.  THIS ONE.  NO OTHERS.

The important thing? Is to hit one of those donation sites and GIVE: The GoFundme is here; her PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

The current overall total (GFM, PayPal, CashApp, etc.) I think is $9,506 (less fees, so figure closer to $9,400 net)!  Soooooo close. Come on, let's do this:  a big one-week push to make goal! That's about $900 on the original $10K goal, but to make the $5,500 GFM goal, it would be about $2,500 (some came in via PayPal between the time the GFM was first set up and the time it went live).  We've got less today and tomorrow, which would mean raising ~$1,200 a day, and yes, we can do this! Details below:

The Nazi is officially out of the White House; a man who is fundamentally a decent human being is in. That was not the end of anything. Now? Now is the beginning of the THE WORK.

And courtesy of the mess that colonialism and white supremacy on steroids have left us, there will not be much in the way of tangible help for a while yet from any taxpayer-funded source. There's never enough in the first place. But it's the dead of a winter, and there's a deadly global viral pandemic raging unchecked. People are suffering, and yes, they're dying, too. And it is our work, ALL OF OURS, to prevent that from happening.

When we know that one of our own is in dire straits? It's our job to do something about it. Folks have known about this now for about four weeks. But we haven't managed to get this to goal. So.

Time to reignite this effort: for JoanMar, shelter, warmth, and light. Come on, folks; this is doable. Easily. But folks need to commit to sharing it.

BUT FIRST, the links:  The GoFundme is here; her PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

You can read the earlier posts here and here and here. The short version is that JoanMar, upon whom her entire circle depends, has been left unemployed courtesy of this pandemic and has been struggling in silence to survive since last March. No help; no shoulder to help bear the load; just people who need help coming to her repeatedly but not returning the same to her. We know what that's like, and it's a burden that Black and Indigenous women particularly bear.

Initially, we were hoping to raise $10,000 to cover back rent, back and current utilities, car insurance, and other bills that had to be left unpaid while there was nothing coming in and nowhere to turn. Of that threshold goal, I think we're officially over the $8K mark now, but the GFM was set up to provide for breathing room, because something you can't anticipate always come at you out of left field.

WE ARE DOING THIS FOR ONE LAST WEEK, PER JOANMAR. LET'S MAKE IT A BIG PUSH, AND GET THE FULL AMOUNT RAISED NOW.

#HelpFolksLive2021

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

UPDATE 41! BIG ONE-WEEK PUSH TO MAKE GOAL: For JoanMar, Shelter, Warmth, and Light

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

NEW UPDATE! I think the current overall total (GFM, PayPal, CashApp, etc.) is $8,763!  Soooooo close. Come on, let's do this:  a big one-week push to make goal! That's about $1,300 on the original $10K goal, but to make the $5,500 GFM goal, it would be about $2,800.  We've got 7 days, which would be raising $400 a day; we can do this! Details below:

Wednesday is behind us. The Nazi is officially out of the White House; a man who is fundamentally a decent human being is in. That was not the end of anything. Now? Now is the beginning of the THE WORK.

And courtesy of the mess that colonialism and white supremacy on steroids have left us, there will not be much in the way of tangible help for a while yet from any taxpayer-funded source. There's never enough in the first place. But it's the dead of a winter, and there's a deadly global viral pandemic raging unchecked. People are suffering, and yes, they're dying, too. And it is our work, ALL OF OURS, to prevent that from happening.

When we know that one of our own is in dire straits? It's our job to do something about it. Folks have known about this now for about four weeks. But we haven't managed to get this to goal. So.

Time to reignite this effort: for JoanMar, shelter, warmth, and light. Come on, folks; this is doable. Easily. But folks need to commit to sharing it.

BUT FIRST, the links:  The GoFundme is here; her PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

You can read the earlier posts here and here. The short version is that JoanMar, upon whom her entire circle depends, has been left unemployed courtesy of this pandemic and has been struggling in silence to survive since last March. No help; no shoulder to help bear the load; just people who need help coming to her repeatedly but not returning the same to her. We know what that's like, and it's a burden that Black and Indigenous women particularly bear.

Initially, we were hoping to raise $10,000 to cover back rent, back and current utilities, car insurance, and other bills that had to be left unpaid while there was nothing coming in and nowhere to turn. Of that threshold goal, we managed to raise $6,846, leaving a balance unmet of $3,154.

Enter another friend, Michele. [Y'all at the Great Orange Satan know JoanMar as, well, Joan Mar, and you know Michele as michelewln.] She set up a GoFundMe on behalf of JoanMar last week. Michele had begun this process back when the amount raised was only $4,500, then was sent to bed by illness herself. When she was well enough to complete the set-up, she elected to leave the goal at the original $5,500 . . . because those of us who have ever been in this situation know that no matter how hard you try, how carefully you budget every penny, SOMETHING always come out of left field that you can't anticipate, can't plan for, and smashes all your efforts to smithereens. Given what we now know about lack of vaccine availability and the utter shambles the country's public-health system has been left in, returning to a steady income is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Better to have a small safety net to cover future rent and essential bills.

Since the posting the GoFundMe, it's taken in $800 toward the $5,500 goal. That's a good start, but donations have stalled. Look, I get it; everybody's been wrapped up in the Nazi's departure and the inauguration, but that's all done, and the work still waits. People are in harm's way NOW, and cannot afford to wait for "help" that may never come.

As I said in an earlier iteration of this post, JoanMar has been struggling to make ends meet for herself, as well as for everybody else, in the middle of this deadly pandemic where there's no work and no income and no help to be had, where too many this week are again being forced out onto the streets in the middle of this danger, and the more ordinary dangers of winter. And she's one of the "lucky" ones: Her landlords are a couple who understand well what she's up against, and who are not going to evict her. But she owes three months' back rent, she owes arrearages on utilities and every conceivable bill and expense, because that's what happens when there's nothing coming in even as the whole world continues to suck you dry. That $10K+ may sound like a lot to you, but she lives in a place where this is very ordinary for cost of living — for 3 to 6 months? It's actually low. She also lives in a place where winter is both already here and also already cold and deep, and everyone needs warmth and light now.

Everyone also needs not to be alone, struggling through what's left of this god-awful year with no one to help shoulder the load. JoanMar hasn't had that; she's been doing it all by herself.

No more. Now that we know, it's our job to do something about it.

The breakdown is more or less as follows: About one-third of the $10K is three months' worth of back rent. The remaining two-thirds are a mix of state and local taxes still due (and federal taxes are coming up again in a few months), plus utilities like electricity, heat, water, probably garbage/recycling, too. Then there's vehicle insurance, maintenance, gas in the tank. And, of course, food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, other essentials. These are all sort of off-the-cuff calculations, thrown together one night at the end of December. I can tell you that if it errs, it will be in being too conservative. I want her to have some breathing room.  A room with a safety net in it. And that's why Michele made the GoFundMe goal $5,500; it will give her a couple grand to put aside to cover things she can't predict.

Look, we all know how terrible this year has been for everybody, us included. Sales are way down; we're struggling, too. But we're blessed: We have a roof over our heads, wood for the fire, food in the cabinets and the fridge; our power is on, and we have good clean water. With such good fortune, how could we NOT help? We have to. This is a friend, someone we love.

So we gave $100 the first day, via PayPal. Will you match it? Wings put in $100 out of his Social Security last week. Will you match that? When the GFM went up, we put in 1/100 to kick-start it. That's only $55; will you match that? If you can't, will you donate whatever you can spare? And if you're comfortably situated, will you donate more than that, to help get her $10K and beyond as fast as possible? None of this is about we did, other than trying to get folks to match it. This is what money is FOR; helping folks survive. And JoanMar is one of us. But efforts like these are like a warming fire; they eventually burn down, and we need to reignite it and get this going again.

Here's that donation info again:  PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

And Wings and I would consider this a personal favor.

Thanks.

ll content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

NEW UPDATE [#36]: NOW OVER 2/3 TO GOAL!!!; GoFundMe up! Let's give JoanMar shelter, warmth, and light for this winter [Fundraiser].

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

NEW UPDATE:  GoFundMe up here!  Michele set it up for $5,500, which was the full amount left to goal when she began working on it; she decided [rightly] that it would be better to keep that as a goal, because JoanMar needs breathing room. Something ALWAYS comes up that you can't anticipate, and that's all the more true when a global viral pandemic has taken away your employment and you have no regular income. I am also not going to be tracking the numbers now, other than to report totals if/when I get them from JoanMar, because they won't jive with the amount of the GFM anyway. 

SECOND:  Donations have slowed. I'm seeing lots of celebration today, but also a lot of immediate amnesia. The work BEGINS today, not ends. And we cannot abandon the folks who have suffered and lost so much this last year. This is a chance to fix a little of it, to help one person stay alive. It's not a lot, and I know my online communities have raised far more for far lesser purposes, so let's do this now.

Also, folks at the Great Orange Satan?  PLEASE stop sharing the post that's almost 3 weeks out of date now. You know this is the current one, so please share the one with the current info, as I have asked explicitly already. Outdated info that you know to be outdated helps no one. This has been the current post for more than two weeks now, and save for a few minutes between getting our other posts up, it is ALWAYS at the very top of my site.

Also, since that amount is $5,500?  Wings and I put in $55, 1/100 of it. Can you match it? So far, she's got $160 $270 $710 $720 $775 $800 in the GFM (which is effectively no more than $150 $255-260 probably $670 $690 $750 $775 or so at most, because GFM deducts fees).  100 more people matching us would cover it, AND probably cover the fees, too. 

NOW COMES THE HARD PART.  We have to raise the second half.  We can do it.

I want to be clear about timelines here: The match was met in the early hours of Tuesday afternoon, NOT Wednesday, and the donor deposited the matching funds approximately ten minutes after the match was met. That was on January fifth, 11 days ago ago. 

Since then, there has been one new donation, have been four[?] new donations. She's now at $5,186 $5,286 $6,286 $6,436 $6,536 $6846 overall, with $4,814 $4,714 $3,714 $3,564 $3,464 $3,154 left to raise.

A mutual friend is setting up a GoFundMe on JoanMar's behalf, which may be up as early as tonight. It'll make tracking easier, and donating, too. We still need to help raise $3,464 $3,154, and time is short. Please share this post now, share JoanMar's PayPal and CashApp addresses now, share the GoFundMe when it's up, and help us get her there ASAP. 

I told you that I would be creating an updated version of the fundraiser I posted here Saturday for someone very dear to us, someone a lot of you reading this know and love. Most of you know this woman as JoanMar. She's JoanMarDK on Twitter, and JoanMar at the Great Orange Satan. We know her as a dear friend, a spirit sister of sorts. She is strong, brave, beautiful Black woman with a heart filled with love and a warrior's spirit, and she needs us now. She's been struggling for six months now, alone and in silence, in the middle of this deadly pandemic. No one should carry such burdens alone, but no one should have to bear the burdens in the first place. Let's give JoanMar shelter, warmth, and light for this winter.

Tracking update:  We're at $4,814 $4,714 $3,714 $3,564 $3,464 $3,154 left to raise; not bad for just ~2 weeks of getting the word out. Please keep sharing, and please keep donating!  WE CAN DO THIS!

BUT FIRST, the links:  PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

I said "strong," and there's no lie there, but frankly, she's been stronger than anyone should ever have to be. Some years back, she lost her daughter, a beautiful young woman, to a terrible example of medical malpractice. She's the one who's always there when someone in her extended family needs something: the one everyone goes to when they need money, or a hand, or a shoulder. But the same is not returned to her.

I said elsewhere this morning that Black and Indigenous woman know this burden well: We keep everyone else alive and safe and well, as well as possible and better than anyone could reasonably expect in this terrible colonial system. But we're so good at it, so skilled, so silent about our sacrifices and what it costs us that everyone has just come to expect it as the nature of things. And when we are the ones who need that help?

There's usually no one to be found.

None of us should have to be so "strong."

And JoanMar has been struggling to make ends meet for herself, as well as for everybody else, in the middle of this deadly pandemic where there's no work and no income and no help to be had, where too many this week are again being forced out onto the streets in the middle of this danger, and the more ordinary dangers of winter. And she's one of the "lucky" ones: Her landlords are a couple who understand well what she's up against, and who are not going to evict her. But she owes three months' back rent, she owes arrearages on utilities and every conceivable bill and expense, because that's what happens when there's nothing coming in even as the whole world continues to suck you dry. It's going to take a good $10,000 to cover everything she owes, and that may sound like a lot to you, but she lives in a place where this is very ordinary for cost of living — for 3 to 6 months? It's actually low. She also lives in a place where winter is both already here and also already cold and deep, and everyone needs warmth and light now.

Everyone also needs not to be alone, struggling through what's left of this god-awful year with no one to help shoulder the load. JoanMar hasn't had that; she's been doing it all by herself.

No more. Now that we know, it's our job to do something about it.

The breakdown is more or less as follows: About one-third of the $10K is three months' worth of back rent. The remaining two-thirds are a mix of state and local taxes still due (and federal taxes are coming up again in a few months), plus utilities like electricity, heat, water, probably garbage/recycling, too. Then there's vehicle insurance, maintenance, gas in the tank. And, of course, food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, other essentials. These are all sort of off-the-cuff calculations; we just threw this together last night and this morning. I can tell you that if it errs, it will be in being too conservative. I want her to have some breathing room.  A room with a safety net in it.

Look, we all know how terrible this year has been for everybody, us included. Sales are way down; we're struggling, too. But we're blessed: We have a roof over our heads, wood for the fire, food in the cabinets and the fridge; our power is on, and we have good clean water. With such good fortune, how could we NOT help? We have to. This is a friend, someone we love.

So we gave $100 the first day, via PayPal. [Yeah, but I can juggle a few things; if we have to take a late-fee hit on the electricity bill, it's worth it.] Will you match it? If you can't, will you donate whatever you can spare? And if you're comfortably situated, will you donate more than that, to help get her $10K and beyond as fast as possible?

Because this is supposed to be the season of peace, and there's been precious little of it anywhere. JoanMar needs warmth and light, and the peace that comes with knowing she can cover the bills the pandemic has turned into insurmountable obstacles. So let's do this. I'll update as I have info. First hundred now:

Here's that donation info again:  PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

And Wings and I would consider this a personal favor.

Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

         

UPDATED X7: Everyone Needs Warmth and Light Now: Fundraiser for JoanMar

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

Folks, we need to jump-start this effort. Donations are coming in slowly but consistently and she's closing in on the $2K mark now, but we still need to help raise $8,258 $8158, and time is short. Please share this post, share JoanMar's PayPal and CashApp addresses, and help us get her there ASAP!

I told you that I would be posting a fundraiser Saturday for someone very dear to us, someone a lot of you reading this know and love. She's been struggling for six months now, alone and in silence, in the middle of this deadly pandemic. 

UPDATE:  We're at $720 in one afternoon up to $953 now! up to $1,344 at $1,490 at $1,589 at $1,742 at $1,842 now!!! That means we have $9,280 $8,656 $8,510 $8,411 $8,258 $8,158 left to raise; not bad for just a few hours one day of getting the word out. Please keep sharing, and please keep donating!  WE CAN DO THIS!

BUT FIRST, the links:  PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

Most of you know this woman as JoanMar. She's JoanMarDK on Twitter, and JoanMar at the Great Orange Satan. We know her as a dear friend, a spirit sister of sorts. She is strong, brave, beautiful Black woman with a heart filled with love and a warrior's spirit, and she needs us now.

I said "strong," and there's no lie there, but frankly, she's been stronger than anyone should ever have to be. Some years back, she lost her daughter, a beautiful young woman, to a terrible example of medical malpractice. She's the one who's always there when someone in her extended family needs something: the one everyone goes to when the need money, or a hand, or a shoulder. But the same is not returned to her.

I said elsewhere this morning that Black and Indigenous woman know this burden well: We keep everyone else alive and safe and well, as well as possible and better than anyone could reasonably expect in this terrible colonial system. But we're so good at it, so skilled, so silent about our sacrifices and what it costs us that everyone has just come to expect it as the nature of things. And when we are the ones who need that help?

There's usually no one to be found.

None of us should have to be so "strong."

And JoanMar has been struggling to make ends meet for herself, as well as for everybody else, in the middle of this deadly pandemic where there's no work and no income and no help to be had, where too many this week are again being forced out onto the streets in the middle of this danger, and the more ordinary dangers of winter. And she's one of the "lucky" ones: Her landlords are a couple who understand well what she's up against, and who are not going to evict her. But she owes three months' back rent, she owes arrearages on utilities and every conceivable bill and expense, because that's what happens when there's nothing coming in even as the whole world continues to suck you dry. It's going to take a good $10,000 to cover everything she owes, and that may sound like a lot to you, but she lives in a place where this is very ordinary for cost of living — for 3 to 6 months? It's actually low. She also lives in a place where winter is both already here and also already cold and deep, and everyone needs warmth and light now.

Everyone also needs not to be alone, struggling through what's left of this god-awful year with no one to help shoulder the load. JoanMar hasn't had that; she's been doing it all by herself.

No more. Now that we know, it's our job to do something about it.

The breakdown is more or less as follows: About one-third of the $10K is three months' worth of back rent. The remaining two-thirds are a mix of state and local taxes still due (and federal taxes are coming up again in a few months), plus utilities like electricity, heat, water, probably garbage/recycling, too. Then there's vehicle insurance, maintenance, gas in the tank. And, of course, food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, other essentials. These are all sort of off-the-cuff calculations; we just threw this together last night and this morning. I can tell you that if it errs, it will be in being too conservative. I want her to have some breathing room.  A room with a safety net in it.

Look, we all know how terrible this year has been for everybody, us included. Sales are way down; we're struggling, too. But we're blessed: We have a roof over our heads, wood for the fire, food in the cabinets and the fridge; our power is on, and we have good clean water. With such good fortune, how could we NOT help? We have to. This is a friend, someone we love.

So we're giving $100 today, via PayPal. [Yeah, but I can juggle a few things; if we have to take a late-fee hit on the electricity bill, it's worth it.] Will you match it? If you can't, will you donate whatever you can spare? And if you're comfortably situated, will you donate more than that, to help get her $10K and beyond as fast as possible?

Because this is supposed to be the season of peace, and there's been precious little of it anywhere. JoanMar needs warmth and light, and the peace that comes with knowing she can cover the bills the pandemic has turned into insurmountable obstacles. So let's do this. I'll update as I have info. First hundred now:

Here's that donation info again:  PayPal address is nevfai [at] optonline [dot] net; CashApp is $ForYouMaria.

And Wings and I would consider this a personal favor.

Thanks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

         

Homelessness can be deadly. We can get a family fighting cancer safely into their home for ~ $3K.

Remember the seven years of this?
We got lucky, and very, very blessed.
Another family's not so lucky this winter.
We can change that.

Wings and I know what it's like to be the next thing to homeless. We did it for seven long years. Seven winters in this climate, with a couple of years where the lows hit -40. That's actual temperature, not wind chill. And that was living in a ramshackle, uninsulated, toxic tin can of an RV.

It's one of the reasons, most likely, why I nearly died twice 15 months ago, and why I'm dealing with testing for what could turn out to be some very bad things now.

But during those seven years, we didn't have small children to care for. I wasn't battling cancer, dealing with a disease in Stage 4 in multiple areas of my body. I may know now what it means, on a very personal level, to have my breathing stop, to have my, as someone some of us know was forced to write about his wife, "lips turn blue." But I didn't have to deal with all of that without proper housing, and I have to tell you, that's likely why I'm still here today.

Some folks we know are dealing with precisely that situation, though — the worse version of it. Those of you who frequent, or even just read at, the Great Orange Satan know them as Freelance Escapologist, a/k/a Callum, and his wife Kim. And they are going through a special kind of hell that Wings and I know all too well.

First off, before we get into the specifics: In the immediate term, we have to get them housed, which means finishing their power and water and septic hookups off and getting their manufactured home hauled onto the land and set up. Just for the bare minimum, moving the home and finishing off the septic system and getting everything hooked up and functional, we need to raise $3,000, which should be eminently doable in short order. But it hasn't been. So now, while Wings and I are not in any position to offer a big standard match, what we're going to do is this: We're kicking this off by putting in $100. If 29 people match us dollar for dollar, this first stage is done. If 59 people give $50, it's done. If 119 people give $25, it's done. Here's the link (it's still at $2,500, but they've had medication and other expenses drain what's been raised, and they need a little breathing room for the incidentals that you can't predict but that always, always occur in a project of this magnitude).

Surely we can scrape together a hundred people who can part with $25, right? A week's worth of runs to Starbucks, which none of us should be patronizing anyway until their billionaire CEO does the right thing, gets off the Presidential stage, and quits endangering the country further. Right? What better repurposing of money the country's been throwing at a billionaire for mediocre coffee than to help a family, one most definitely not in the billionaire class, get and stay housed? Better yet, so Kim can heal in shelter and safety?

Now, there's a lot behind this story, so please keep reading. It's one part measure of the dominant culture's failure as a society, one part "there but for the grace of whatever goes literally anyone," one part very large trigger for my own fears and memories. I read the account of Kim's recent hospitalization with tears streaming down my face, because I know that fear. And it's frankly absurd that in a country as rich as this one, Kim and Callum and their kids should not already have their home set up on their land, hooked up to their utilities, and be able to focus on Kim's healing in safety and a relative sort of peace.

But you need to hear this in Callum's own words. First, from last November, when this effort first really got under way publicly:

Someone we know could lose her home of 68 years. We can help prevent that.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

[Here's the tl;dr: Cherie and her family (snackdoodle, for those of you at the GOS) are going to lose their family home of 68 years if we don't step up and help them get around the hurdles the mortgage crisis put into place. Donate via GoFundMe here, or by PayPal at cclark1 [at] cox [dot] net. Match our current $50 contribution if you can.]

It's gray and windy here; the mercury has dropped significantly from this morning. The aspens are shedding their leaves in advance of the freezing rain and snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

"Winter is coming" may be the motto of House Stark, but here, it's a truth of the season, too.

Winter is coming to Nebraska, too, and soon: It's a place susceptible to extreme weather year-round, but cold wintry rains are forecast for the weekend and much of next week. The first snow cannot be far behind.

It's not a time for anyone to lose a home. It's especially not a time for a 74-year-old woman and her disabled son (he has a severe seizure disorder and has survived two heart attacks) to lose their family home of sixty-eight years. The circumstances are made all the more obscene because it's not their fault, but the system doesn't care: They are victims of the criminal enterprise known as the subprime mortgage scheme, and the holders of the note on their house are not the ones with whom they entered any agreement. But as we know all too well from having lost everything ourselves eight years (nine winters) ago, such institutions treat rules as suggestions and laws as mosquitoes, to be swatted away as nothing more than a temporary inconvenience.

And too often, they're enabled by an apathetic and dysfunctional justice system.

That's where Cherie and her family find themselves now: at the crossroads of apathy and greed, where absolutely no one in the system is invested in helping them stay in their home, because it's more profitable to "people who matter" to make sure they don't.

Those of you with ties to the GOS may know Cherie as snackdoodle. On Saturday, she wrote a diary there detailing the desperate straits in which she and hers now find themselves. Time is of the essence, and there's not much of that left. They have only days to raise the funds for a retainer for a qualified lawyer who will pursue their case in federal court and make one last-ditch, pull-out-all-the-stops effort to save the home that has been her family's since 1950.

Cherie's Saturday diary got some traction for a day or so. Weekends are notoriously hard for fundraising; everyone's busy with everything they could do during the workweek. But since then, donations have dropped off precipitously, and she and her family are fast running out of time. They've managed to raise $1,200 so far, but they need to raise $6,000 — $5K for the lawyer's retainer and an additional cushion for incidentals such as filing fees, etc. Now, yes, it's true that, should they prevail in federal court, they may very well need a lot of help getting on their feet with regard to a new payment plan, but that's neither surprising nor disqualifying. We're supposed to be here to help each other. Wings and I know that as well as anyone; after eight winters virtually homeless, in conditions most people cannot even fathom in a place where extremes of weather and climate are the norm, it was the generosity of friends and strangers alike, added to every penny we scrimped and save to earn and hang onto, that enabled us to build the small, solid, warm, safe house in which we will spend this winter, secure against the elements.

If people can do that, they can do anything. Saving Cherie's house should be easily done, provided we can get enough people of good will and generosity to lend a hand.

We took some funds from our last sale and kicked them in over the weekend. We made another sale last night, and we're taking fifty dollars from it and throwing it in the kitty as soon as I get this posted. If 99 more people gave the same amount, we'd have the total covered with a fraction to spare. I know a lot of folks can't give fifty. But some can, and some can give $100, and some can give even more than that. One hundred donors of varying amounts, and we can make short work of the balance. We could do it today, if we can get this in front of the right people, and if there's the will to do it.

Wings and I are blessed. Whatever else we face (and right now, with my health issues, to call it "significant" is to understate the matter by an order of magnitude or so), we at least have a roof over our heads — a real roof, a real home, warmth and safety and security in the face of the storm that is now only hours distant. Cherie and her family need that same sense of security.

Even if you can't donate, please share the link to her GoFundMe page. But if you can, please do. If you can match our $50, please do that; if you can go us one (or a lot) better, please, please do so. We are mindful of our great good fortune now, and we want to pay some of that forward by helping Cherie and her family keep their lifelong home. Again, here's the GoFundMe page. If you prefer PayPal, here's the e-mail address to use: cclark1 [at] cox [dot] net. And if you want to send a check, message me and I'll get you an address.

Winter is coming. No one should have to face it by losing their home. The way the system is set up, we can't save everybody, although I sorely wish we could. But we can save the one's we know about, and we know about Cherie and her family. Let's keep them home.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

New $100 match on offer for Tricia Wyse's family! Please share/RT/give.

Photo copyright Franki and Mikayla, 2018;
all rights reserved.

Okay, peeps, quick and dirty: This beautiful little girl is the granddaughter of Tricia Wyse, our late and beloved Pootie Queen from a certain community. Tricia's daughter, Franki, is without a car and needs one to get to work, but also to get Mikayla to her essential doctors' appointments. Our also-beloved bubba wrote about it yesterday, so those of you unfamiliar with the tragic (and yet triumphant) backstory can go read about it here.

They're short a lousy 400 bucks. That doesn't seem like much, except when you don't have it. We threw in what we could as a match for bubba's diary, and we're tapped out or we'd do it ourselves. But! I've just been notified by a dear friend that there is a $100 match on offer to get them closer to goal. Please share the link to this post around, or RT/share when I get this out via FB and Twitter. We can get this last hurdle handled; we just need all hands on deck. Go here to donate.

Thx. [She-Wolf thanks you, too.]



All text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

When the Water Meets the Light: Linda McClure, April 22, 1953-December 28, 2016

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Joy is a lake.
Grief is a river.
You can lose yourself in one; be lost in the other.

As this day dawns, we are in the river: swept along in the rapids, sucked under here, dashed on the rocks there, buffeted and battered by grief.

As this day dawns, Lin is in her lake.

In our culture, we say that a person has walked on: It's an expression that deliberately robs death of its fateful power, one that recognizes the sovereignty of the spirit as it moves between the worlds, one that reminds us that our loved ones are not truly gone, merely traveled a distance beyond our current reach.

But to say that Lin has walked on misses the essential truth of her.

A Lake for Lin: A Call from Wings to Acts of Joy, Love, Community, and Spirit

Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved.

A note from Aji:  Last week, as we were trying to schedule diarists on behalf of Lin through the holiday season, Wings told me that he wanted to write one for her, and asked me to post it for him through my account. I promised to do so as soon as he was ready. The poem below is one that Wings wrote many years ago, in a slightly different form. He reworked it today specifically for Lin. Before you read the end note, sit for a moment with the words, with the spirit of it, see what it means to you. 

Photo copyright Wings, 2016;
all rights reserved.



For Lin

Imagine light so intense and so complete

Covering you like a velvet blanket.

A lightness which cuts you off from the everyday world, which forces you to withdraw deep into yourself, which makes you see with your heart instead of your eyes.

You can’t see but your eyes are open.

You are isolated, but you know that we are united with all living things.

Out of this utter lightness comes the roaring of drums, the sound of the prayers.

And among these sounds your ear catches the voices of the spirits, ghostlike, whispering to you from unseen lips.

Lights are flitting through the room almost touches you little flashes of lightning coming at you almost rainbow-like.

Rattles are flying through the air, you feel the wings of the birds brushing your face, feeling the light touch of a feather on your skin.

And always you hear the throbbing drums and song filling the empty space inside yourself, making your body sing to their rhythm.

~ Wings

From Aji:  With these words and images, Wings is calling all of us to an act of community: to lift up Lin, and Laura, too, in the light and the sound of song and rattle and drum — in joy. In love.  His words are about joy, about the freedom of the spirit, and about the call to community to support our own through love.

You can read the backstory about Lin’s sudden and emergent illness here. You can donate to Lin and Laura here, or via PayPal here: lauramcclure01@gmail.com.

Photo copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved.

Cross-posted here.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

A Lake for Lin: Tracing Her Ripples, Telling Their Stories

I first wrote here two weeks ago this morning about the fight my friend faces. Many of you know her better as PDNC, but a great many of you also know her, as I do, as Lin.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about her work, about the water and other aspects of our earth that she has spent a lifetime fighting to protect. I wrote about how grief may be a river in which we can be lost, joy is a lake in which we can lose ourselves willingly. I wrote about wanting to create a lake for Lin: of joy, of hope, of resources that will give her peace of mind in the battle of and for her life. Of love.

This community stepped up and created the beginnings of a miracle: more than $10,000 raised in exactly two weeks flat — and with it, an outpouring of love and support from all quarters for this woman who has been so long a force of nature, like the rapids, and yet such a gentle spirit, like the still waters of the pond that nurtures our willows.

The financial support is so important — indeed, it is crucial. With the funds already raised, her sister Laura was able to buy both the ordinary oxygen concentrator and a portable one lightweight and compact enough for her to carry on visits to doctors and the hospital. She was also able to buy the oxygen for it . . . but there's a caveat or three. Oxygen orders come in a supply of twenty-four tanks. That seems like a lot, especially when the insurance providers consider use of half a tank a day excessive. The cancer in Lin's lungs is widespread and invasive enough that instead, she requires multiple tanks a day just for basic function. Just to breathe.

And so, the fundraising component of this process becomes ever more urgent. Before I get to the heart of today's real request, I want to ask every one of you to share Lin and Laura's crowdfunding page once again. If you can afford to give, even just a few bucks, please do it. These women are our own, and they need help in what is, truly, a matter of life and death. That five dollars you were going to spend at Starbucks this afternoon? It could become part of a real holiday-season miracle:

A Lake for Lin: A Community Fundraiser for an Eco-Warrior In the Fight of Her Life

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Joy is a lake.

Grief is a river.

You can lose yourself in one; be lost in the other.

I wrote those words on the first day of this month. Then, I had no idea how soon I would have reason to understand, yet again, the essential truth of them.

Some people are like the water: Buoyant. They hold you up by the sheer force and fierceness of the their own spirits. They are forces of nature, a constant ebb and flow, eddy and tide, and they give life just be being present.

And it's not until you are cast fully into the drought that you realize how much life they give you.

Photo credit:  Lin McClure

My friend Lin is one of these people.

She is, in her way, a warrior too: one for Mother Earth, for the land and the air and, yes, the waters that she and I both hold sacred. She is sister and friend and force of nature. And like the earth she has fought so fiercely for decades to defend, she is in the fight of her life.

For her life.