Zero Hour, 8AM

For the last few weeks, I've been working on a project with some of those Dirty Fucking Hippies from the Great Orange Satan. (Ooooh, I hope Bill O'Reilly doesn't catch wind of this!) Basically, it started as a program to match up folks who had no place to go for Thanksgiving with folks who could host a guest or two. In just under a week, we were able to assist in making some success stories and helping some people connect and make new friends. (Some of the success stories brought a tear or two to my eye. Just sayin'...)

Of course, once you get a taste of that kind of work, you want to see what else you can accomplish. So, it turned into a full on program to raise money to help folks with bills, buy toys for children, match up more folks for the holidays, and who knows where we'll take it from here.

There are three of us doing most of the work on this, right now, and since I have a brand new website with no content and lots of bandwidth available, I've been doing the tech work. Frustrating? You betcha! I'm using an interface that's new to me and there's a certain amount of pressure to get this thing set up in time to manage the requester and donor information so we can provide some real results. But it's been a good learning experience and, frankly, it fits perfectly with the vision I had for the new website. So, maybe I was preparing myself for this project before I even knew about it. That's cool. Well, as long as Sarah Palin doesn't find out and make snide comments about us being Community Organizers.

Anyhoo - we're going to launch the second wave tomorrow morning and it should be an interesting week and a half. I'm hoping that we can really make a difference for some folks who are going through tough times. No idea what's coming down the road after Xmas. One of the principles mentioned helping people with heating bills, which could keep us busy all Winter.

I'll let you know how things turn out.