Good morning all and happy Turkey-day! Or Thanksgiving, or turduckenpalooza, or just a day that you are vertical and ventilating.
On thanksgiving every year, I try to pause and think about the things I have to be grateful for. This charity, the @gr8fullyfeclub, has been one of the most powerful things that has happened this year for me. I like to think that we have touched a lot of lives, and I now have a few folks that are following my lead. Out of Coronacation and some job and family issues, I was able to make this into a real thing, collecting north of 80 computers, fixing and redistributing over 50 (so far), and really helping some folks who struggled with Corona, job insecurity, food insecurity, and the soul crushing isolation of the "covid winter." My friend who is very familiar with trauma informed instruction says that everyone right now is suffering trauma. All of us are alone more than we would like, restricted more than we would like, unable to connect in ways that we would like.
We had a Hartford Courant article, the support of the Little Red Barn Brewers, many monetary donations (my favorite was from Jimmy Carter's foundation) and computer donations. The charity is not sustainable (yet) but it is moving slowly in that direction. If every summer can be as successful as this one was, I can keep it moving forward. I was at the point of looking at retail spaces, since one of the biggest things we needed was cash flow to buy parts with. I could apportion some of the donated machines to be sold to buy parts to fix other machines to donate. In other words, this could a) pay rent on a storefront and b) afford to continue to exist in the absence of a big donor or more donations.
There are other ways to make it sustainable, of course. I could teach students to do what I do, and promise them a computer for taking the course. If I charged for this, it would still be a cheap way to gain knowledge and a computer.
At any rate, this has been the best year yet in my charitable organization. It is almost to the point where I need to make it officially a 501c3, do separate taxes and run it like a business. I don't need more work to do (I already have 3 jobs - 4 if you count tutoring) but it would certainly be nice to have a TIN so that we wouldn't be paying taxes on the computer parts. Hope you are all well, and can find things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. If you need a machine, please fill out the request form on the website or comment on this blog, and I will do my best to help.
With gratitude,
Mark
