Saturday, September 17, 2011

We Did it!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

We did it.  As of Thursday night when we closed the Give Forward Fundraiser, between that fundraiser, the epic yard sale, offline contributions directly to Alpine by folks who were doing tax write offs for us, and a particular Coporation (who shall remain unnamed)'s Matching fund for one of those folks...  we raised in one month $4776.  Our goal was $4600.

AND we still have some big stuff we're working on selling (FoosBall Table, Electric lifting chair for someone w/difficulty getting out of furniture, and 2 really nice guitars of Rod's), so more will be coming in.

To say that we are completely humbled and feeling tremendously supported is beyond an understatement.   We have been putting every penny we can into his therapy account for years now, and we made the rule that it didn't get touched for anything but Dominic's therapy.  When we had to raid it to pay for the car repair last month it completely knocked the legs out from under me because so many other things could go wrong, and we need to be able to keep our heads above water.  That was one of the drivers in setting an end time to the therapy of Aug 2012.  (the second driver is the loss of insurance coverage for anything relating to a diagnosis of autism the day Dominic turns 7 - Feb 11.  Insurance had been covering ~25% of the therapy for the last couple of years)

When we started this fundraiser, I picked the amount of $4600 very specifically.  When we put the finish line (Aug of 2012) in play, we sat down and looked at the therapy account.  We took what we would need to get to the finish line, subtracted what we had, subtracted what we're pretty sure I'll get in my bonus in Feb, and what we think we can squeeze out of a tax refund.  Divided what was left by the number of paychecks between now and when the last payment would be due.  And took a really deep breath.  That $4600 is what it was going to take to put that per paycheck amount from "uhoh, i don't think we can pull that off" to "okay, we can do this with just a bit of juggling and appropriate choices". 

So the difference all of you have made is phenomenal, and we hope that blessings and good karma rain down 10fold for you.  Its been an amazing lesson in a number of things, from the generosity of community to the need to ask for help.   And while i don't particularly ever want to do it again, We are completely gobsmacked at how it turned out. 

We will pay forward as much and as soon as we can.

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