Vetwife needs our help. Last weekend, she was looking for a used laptop that someone would be willing to donate. Her current laptop is rented and it looks like it just got picked up yesterday by the company that owns it. She now has a desk top with a fried monitor to work on. Not much help in today's world of internet volunteer activism.
She has a paypal link set up for donations - if folks would like to give some money towards the purchase of a new laptop, Vetwife can get back to work doing what she does best, helping veterans.
Your donation will be tax deductible as it officially goes to the non-profit she founded, United Service Veterans of America. A little more below the squiggle.
**llbear is offering to match the first $100 in donations - make your donation worth twice as much!*
*llbear's offer has been matched! We're up to $300 in donations, plus a few more that we don't know the totals on. Can we get to $500 by tomorrow morning?**
Last week, Vetwife posted a diary asking for the community to start a type of DailyKos freecycle where we could share our unneeded and unwanted items with each other. It's a great idea, but she can spend a long time waiting for that unneeded laptop to appear in her lap. We want to help her out sooner than that.
That's why I asked her this week how she felt about taking small donations instead. I hadn't realized that she runs a small non-profit, so she's already used to seeing sporadic small donations to help keep the non-profit running. However, with a recent move, both the non-profit and Vetwife's family are struggling for basic survival.
Vetwife is known for writing potent diaries about the current state of affairs for the average veteran's family. She keeps us apprised of potential legislation that will affect our veterans, like when "Republicans want to cut Veterans benefits." She is also raising children, caring for her disabled veteran husband, and keeping life together after losing her house in Georgia.
Her non-profit, that she founded and ran for years, is struggling:
This little org has never ever had any funding and people now do not have the money to back it. I have drained ourselves for years now trying to get a dollar here and dollar there to buy flowers for graves, drive to VA and only had a handful of people help. Food for widows of vets and helping with info and consult on benefits.
That is our Vetwife. We love her. If you can help her out and keep her tapping away at those keys, here is the link to her paypal account. Here is a link to the United Veteran's of America webpage. They have a working link to the paypal account. For some reason, I can't get the link to work here in this diary. Apologies to all for any problems earlier!
If you feel like sharing your donation with us, let us know in the comments below. Suggestions on where to buy a refurbished laptop with a warranty would be great as well. I have found usedlaptops.com with computers for well under $500 but there might be better places to go.
Thanks in advance! I know that Vetwife will surely appreciate anything we can do to help.
5:43 PM PT: We've contributed $300 plus a couple of unknown amount donations to the Vetwife Laptop Fund! I'm off to bed (night comes a little earlier in Argentina than in the States) but hope that through the evening we might be able to close that gap and raise a total of $500. Thanks to those who have tipped, recced, and/or donated. You guys rock!