UPDATE: Just 300 more and they'll have a furnace. C'mon Kossacks, we can do it!
UPDATE 2: We now need only 175 dollars. Let's try to get it before midnight!
UPDATE 3: We did it!
Folks, as many of you know it gets awfully cold in South Dakota during the winter. And as many more of you know, Pretty Bird Woman House is located in South Dakota. Aside from the fact that helping these women is the right thing to do, there's another reason to consider donating. In memory of Senator Biden's mother in law who passed away this week.
Senator Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act to help the women who this shelter serves. I can't think of any better way to show our support for Senator Biden in this time of personal tragedy than by acting to show our support for a cause he has championed for such a long time.
This diary is a follow up on
Norbrook's diary which was a follow up onBetson08's.
Please Digg the original
As I write this we're almost at the 5,000 dollars needed for the furnace. Won't you please donate?
From Betson08's original diary:
If you haven't been a Kossack for that long, you don't know that last year this community was almost single-handedly (we had Street Prophets and LiveJournal help) responsible for buying the house in the above photo, which now a stable, functioning women's shelter on the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It was a pretty amazing effort. The day it was Front Paged, we raised $10,000!
We took action after being enraged by an Amnesty International report that documented appalling rates of sexual violence against American Indian and Native Alaskan women and highlighted the plight of the shelter. Kossacks later contributed money and items as housewarming gifts, as well as money for a new coat of paint for the house, which a church group put on this summer.
The only big ticket item the shelter still needs is a new furnace, and this is only because the shelter's board didn't notice that the furnace was in bad condition when it purchased the house. Since winters in South Dakota can get to 20 below, pretty soon they're going to really notice how poorly it's working.
I also should probably mention that the fight against Domestic Violence is one that is near and dear to my heart. Not from personal experience or witnessing of it, but because I am an unashamed Momma's Boy who never got to know her as well as he should have (she died of cancer when I was 8). My best friend -- people joke that we're fraternal twins -- is a girl, and the thought of anyone hurting her is just as offensive as the thought of someone hurting my mother. The women who need Pretty Bird Woman House are people's mother's, people's friends, people's daughters, and people's "twins". So lets stand up for them by donating.
And here's a nifty link to watch the progress: