Thoughts on the Donation Website

Many of you have been to the donation website for my family and I at the YouCaring.Com website. I thought it was important that you know where this website came from, and for what purpose it will serve.

After the surgery, I received a tremendous outpouring of support from friends and family. In many cases, people were asking what they could do to help. I had many people offer to come out and visit, and provide Karla with assistance. My friend Bruce took it one step further, suggesting that he and his wife Karen would offer to purchase meals for us on a regular basis from a place like GrubHub or some other internet company that provided dinner to its customers. Karla felt that she could handle the meals portion at her end, so Bruce asked if there were other areas that we would need help. We really had no idea what medical bills we would face, what additional costs may arise, what my state of recovery would be once the baby was born and what sort of child support would be needed in order to keep our family moving forward.

So Bruce set up the Donation website so that people could send support if they wished, without having to ask "What can we do?"  The website would be up for 60 days, and people could log in, read updates from Karla and I, and if they so chose, donate some money. We never anticipated it would end up raising what it did. First off, social media is incredible. Some friends posted the site on their Facebook pages, it got on certain timelines, and donations came in, some from people we did not even know (some of our friends have very generous friends and family of their own).  Second, I never realized just how many people had been part of my life - friends I had lost touch with over the years were suddenly giving us money and I was very touched. Even now, as I write this, it is very emotional.

We immediately decided that all money raised from this site would go towards hiring an au pair who would assist Karla in raising Isla and the new baby, and give Karla some time to also help me. The au pair is scheduled to start on April 10 and will be with us for a year. I'll speak more on the au pair process in a later blog if any of you want further details on what it entails.

Two things: First, we did not ask for handouts.  The website provided a method for people to lend their support to us in a meaningful way. It's not something to enhance our financial position, and we never thought it would raise as much money as it did.  We really have no idea what additional costs we may face. Second, you can all rest assured that we will pay this generosity forward when we can. I don't think I can express this any more eloquently than something my friend Mike wrote a few weeks ago:

"Here’s how you “pay back” (although I’m certain you know this already).  You will have an opportunity to be compassionate/selfless/generous to someone in need – just like you’ve been all your adult life.  They will cross your path.  Give of yourself as best you can.  Do that when you can.  Teach your children to do that (well on track already, I know) – teach by example.  We come together, each with dire needs and each with gifts to share.  The divine beauty in this plan is that in our need we find others who have a gift to share which happens to fit our need perfectly – just when we need it most, and at the same time we find others whose needs are an exact match for the gifts we have to share.  This is what the universe had in mind for “community” here.  The only trick is to keep our hearts & minds open to the connection when it’s in the moment, and to let the connection happen."