Update #3: Both Challenges MET — Woot
As of 9 PM Sunday May 10th, the total raised so far (including both matches) is $600.
Goal: $1,000
This generous community rocks.
Thank you to all the donors, large and small. We need ALL of you. Folks stopping by the diary, please continue to help if you can.
Update #2: Another $100 Matching Fund Challenge Offered
Another has stepped up to offer a second $100 matching fund challenge. So now is the time to keep helping! Make your donation go twice as far! Let’s meet this second challenge and raise another $200 now!!!
This matching fund challenge is posting at 11:30 pm EST.
Thank you.
Update #1: Just in — a $100 Matching Fund Challenge — Match Met WOOT!!
A generous donor has just stepped up to offer a $100 matching fund challenge. SO now is the time to help! Make your donation go twice as far! Let’s meet this challenge and raise $200 now!!!
Thank you.
MATCH UPDATE: The match posted approx 5:30 pm EST and as of 8:25pm EST we have $65 towards to the match. Just $35 $00 left to raise on this match
The Need: Two Generous Kossacks to the Rescue!
Last October, two generous anonymous Kossacks did something that is the stuff of legends — or at least of movie tearjerkers. They felt so much empathy for someone in distress that they were moved to help a stranger. Someone they only knew from participating in this online community. What did they do? They stepped forward and offered substantial personal loans — $3000 each — to help save the house of a struggling Kossack from imminent foreclosure. This was a dire emergency. In fact, it was literally down to the wire with only hours to spare:
The good news is that I'm no longer facing imminent foreclosure on my house thanks to two generous people who loaned the money so I wouldn't be.
I paid the amount on the same day my house was set to go to auction. Whew...!
— snoopydawg
Snoopydawg has continued to have trickle-in assistance, which she has forwarded to the first lender (the second said to wait until able). Now we’d like to help pay off the second lender, who has been waiting now for more than 6 months. We’re sure the lender wasn’t anticipating the payback taking this long.
GOAL: Please help pay back the remaining $3000 loan
PayPal snoopydawg@earthlink.net
Money can also be sent to Go Fund Me but they take a percentage. Mark PayPal “to friends and family” and they take NO percentage!
[Also, money raised by photo sales will go to repay this generous lender. See below]
Thank you, donors!
The Backstory
Last September, Kossack snoopydawg was facing a crisis. The bank was about to foreclose on her modest home in rural Utah. HUD couldn’t help. The loan had been sold to a predatory lender. Snoopy admitted that she was behind. But she also had proof that she had made a payment to the old bank that was not properly credited to her. She had receipts. Too bad, the new bank said. If you sent it in to the other bank while we were in the process of buying this loan, that is not our problem. They refused to work with her. Things looked dire. She had no family able to help. She sold what she could to raise funds. Still, she had only weeks before the house was to be auctioned.
Finally, snoopydawg swallowed her pride and asked the DKos Community for help. The bank was demanding almost $9500. Had she waited too long? It was going to be a huge lift for fundraising here. The community sprang into action. Many generous Kossacks gave small donations. Some made substantial generous gifts. Over $3000 was raised — that is a lot for this community.
Two Kossacks Step Forward With Personal Loans
With $6000 still to raise and only days before her house was about to be auctioned, a miracle happened. Two generous Kossacks stepped forward. Each offered to provide $3000 as a personal loan. In fact, both had offered more, not knowing that they had not been the only one to step forward. The terms were beyond generous: No interest and pay us back when you are able to do so. They did this because they needed the money paid back, could not afford to be without it forever; but recognized that it would be impossible to raise that much through donations in just a few days.
This is no longer about snoopydawg —
it’s about the generous lenders.
Now, snoopydawg was never going to be in a position to pay these loans back. We, the Community Needs Team, knew this going in. She continues to live near the financial edge, surviving on disability augmented by occasional photo sales. It was going to be up to the DKos community to continue to fundraise, but at least now we had some breathing room. With only hours to spare, the cash came in and the house was saved.
In January, with the help of this community, snoopydawg was able to pay back most of the loan to the first generous lender. As small donations and photo sales trickled in over these last few months, she finally reached this first milestone: One of the generous anonymous lenders was paid in full. In fact, the last few dollars were donated just last week.
Now we hope to get the second generous lender paid back. How many people would go out on a limb and offer a personal unsecured loan to an online acquaintance just because he saw a need? One in a thousand? One in ten thousand? This is an amazing and honorable as well as generous man. He has helped a lot of Kossacks. Let’s at least make a dent in this loan. If we can raise even $1000 today it would be a wonderful start. Thank you, donors!
A Final Word from the Community Needs Fundraising Team
We have been communicating with snoopydawg and she is ready to get this done. She has also been in direct contact with her remaining lender and benefactor. As funds come in, no matter how much or how little, she will be redirecting them immediately to the remaining generous lender as soon as she has access to her PayPal account. However, because of finances she relies on free wifi spots (especially now that the public library is closed during the pandemic shut-down — thanks, *Rump!) so some communication may be delayed and we may not have ready communication with her during the fundraiser. Nevertheless, she is grateful for any donations, large or small. Because it is no longer about her — it is about paying back her benefactor.
Final word from snoopydawg: I would actually prefer selling my photos. Remember that some special day is just around the corner and it has a way of sneaking up on us.
Snoopydawg Photography
Here is a diary with some newer photos that are not on her website.
(Unfortunately some of them have a limited size for printing.)
PayPal snoopydawg@earthlink.net
(or if you prefer, but remember they take a fee, www.gofundme.com/… )
“Thank you to everyone who helped save my house! Seriously I can't thank you enough.”
For your enjoyment, a selection of some of Snoopydawg’s and our favorite photos, but there are many more:
Save money (compared with buying separate prints) and create dramatic photographic presentations by having several photos grouped into one big photo! Such as:
Any photos can be grouped. Also, snoopydawg works with FineArtAmerica, where any photos can be placed on merch such as these T shirts, fineartamerica.com/.... or these iPhone cases:
Buyer’s choice! Just use the above email address to let her know!
Thank you all for helping us get snoopydawg’s remaining donor over the hump!
It’s too late for photos to arrive for Mother’s Day, of course, but you could always order now and give Mom a promissory note!
NOTE: All of Snoopy’s online photos are dialed down in clarity so that they can’t be stolen. I have a couple of them properly printed by the photo company Snoopydawg uses, and they are much more impressively vibrant!
ALSO PLEASE NOTE: I can’t be here when the diary posts, will be on tonight, but we agreed that it’s better to get an earlier start. I hope to be pleasantly shocked at the amount raised when I return! :-D Meanwhile, the Community Needs Team will be fielding questions and comments. Thank you! Enjoy!