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Good morning all, and welcome to Radio Free Monday! RFM is two years old today. That's two years of help-giving, roommate-finding, pet-saving, kickstartering, indigogoing awesome. And thank you all for playing along with my little delusion of grandeur.

ONWARDS.

Ways To Give:

cluegirl let me know that there's an initiative under way to help stop the spread of hantavirus on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. You can read more about Native American Aid here and donate to help provide medical supplies and other services here.

meganphntmgrl is looking for financial help but more importantly temporary housing for two months in NYC, in order to interview for jobs in the area. She's had a hell of a year and could really use the assistance.

kabal42 let me know about

omarandjohnny, who is raising funds for his masectomy. He has a cafepress store here or you can donate at his gofundme site.

foxxydancr linked to news of the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin moving its Old Masters collection into storage in order to exhibit the Pietzsch Modern-contemporary collection in its place. You can read more here and find a petition to prevent it here. I strongly suggest reading the article before deciding -- it's difficult to weigh Old Masters against genuinely wonderful Modernists like the Pietzsch collection has, but the issue runs deeper than classical versus modern, concerning the likelihood of a new building to house the classical collection ever actually being built.

xturtle linked to Green T Productions, a local Minneapolis theatre company that is kickstarting its production of The Hobbit, "to create a Middle Earth unlike any you've seen before with shades of Japanese Noh, Butoh and Kabuki, and Spanish Flamenco styles." They only have nine days to go and they're a little behind, so every bit helps.

madripoor_rose linked to a kickstarter for the awesome band Enter The Haggis, who are raising funds to record, release, and distribute an album independently.

dreamwaffles linked to a fundraiser for some folks to produce an album of christmas music made entirely from remixed whale song. I have to admit I'm not sure why they need nine grand for this, but it's a pretty funny concept anyhow.

Pets Need Help:

subluxate linked to a post by

foxfury, who is looking for a temporary foster situation for her cat, who is being abused by her roommates.

jane_drew linked to the Pet Postcard project, where for every postcard you send to the project, they donate food for shelter dogs and cats. She also linked to LifeWithCats, which is raising money to help Scooter, a special-needs kitten. There's a donation link at the bottom of the article.

moyakite linked me to an infographic about animal abuse being perpetrated in Oregon. I want to warn that this smells very much like a hoax, and I can't find any actual news stories on it. But animals are frequently abused in one way or another and it doesn't hurt to offer the information that a) it is actually against TOS to post free animals on Craigslist and b) certainly if you see people shooting at domestic pets you should report them.

Just For Fun:

jonaht linked to a Tumblr For Writers that cracked my shit up.

This has done the rounds this week but just in case you haven't seen it, McSweeney's has an article on The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense. Grad students take note!

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!). Remember, brevity is the soul of RFM.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Congratulations on 2 years!
I hope this is the right place to post something I hope you will run on RFM. I am a "Big Sister" to a wonderful 14-year-old girl from South Central whose family of a mom and six kids has survived abuse and extreme poverty and has come out hardworking and kind and determined to make their life better. We have been raising money to help them move out of South Central and into a better life. It has been amazingly inspirational to watch their progress. Here is the whole story:

SMCOP outreach at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, CA has been sponsoring a family for the past 20 months.

They came to us because three of the children in the family were being treated for PTSD/trauma survival at Children’s Hospital LA. Their case worker noted that the kids all needed new shoes and maybe some groceries. That was the beginning of our relationship with this wonderful family. As time has worn on we have fallen in love with this special mom and her family. In the past few months it became clear that where they were living in South Central is not just cramped, filthy (a one-bedroom with no heat or hot water for 7 people!), inconvenient and not conducive to finding meaningful employment for the mom. It now appears this living situation is actually very dangerous to this entire family… too many gangs and too much crime.

Anyway, we resolved to find them a new place to live and thus give these kids who have been through so much a place to thrive and also increase mom's employment opportunities. We accomplished this- moving them on June 1 into a very nice apartment in Van Nuys. This mom was brought here from Mexico when she was 14 (meaning she can now take advantage of Pres. Obama’s new proposal for the Dreamers!). At 14 she was put straight to work (even though she begged to go to school) and within a year she had been pawned off to an older, very abusive man and was having kids and living in terror. When she made her escape from him, she lived in a car for six months… all the while getting her older kids to school each and every day, while watching two toddlers and a newborn and cleaning houses. I tell her all the time she is my hero.

The new rent is $1250. She can make $700 of this rent until she gets her housecleaning business up to speed. So, SMCOP* resolved to augment $7200 over the next year, plus a deposit, plus a few incidentals. So, we are looking to come up with about $9000 total. A year from now she will take over the entire rent. Thus far we have raised $4500 so we are halfway to our goal. These kids are on their way- enrolled in better schools, visiting parks and engage in sports and the arts. This family has survived so much; let’s give them that final leg-up to a truly better life. The daughter who is ten grabbed my hand the day they moved in and said, “I cannot believe this is my home!”

Believe it! This miracle is happening and we hope you will be a part of it!

And here is the link to the funding page: http://www.gofundme.com/ky8h8

Sam, I hope you will post this on RFM - thanks SO much!!!

Angela Barton
ABarton62@yahoo.com

I can certainly RFM :) Thanks!

Oh, that is brilliant. Thanks SO much!! :)

And btw - the "whole story" part is all on the funding link so since you need brevity you could just say the first part and then "read more here" with the funding link.

thanks again!
Angela