Long-Overdue Update October 28, 2006
Posted by JP in : My Super Proposal , add a commentOkay, folks. Sorry for the lack of updates recently. There have been a lot of developments I want to let you know about, and it has been crazy for me as I try and keep up. Those of you not yet listed in the Hall of Fame, please bear with me. I will add you in the next few days. I barely have time to write posts anymore (let’s not forget I’m trying to actually live my life and keep this from my girlfriend, which can be a full time job as it is).
Here are the updates thus far:
-The donations total will be updated soon. There are some e-checks pending and a couple of discussions with more local companies ongoing, so the actual total is a bit in flux. It’s somewhere around $71,000. That’s really huge, but it’s such a tiny fraction of the needed funds that it just reminds me how far I have to go. But there is hope on the horizon.
-There have been three interviews now with newspaper journalists, and articles run in several papers (only the one local one). At least one more is in the works.
-There have been three radio interviews, with stations as far away as Seattle, and more to come.
-There will very soon be an interview on a major national station. Aside from the internet (which is still somewhat of an untapped market for my quest), this will be the first broad audience to hear about the quest. Before the last few days, most of the site visitors had come after hearing about it in an e-mail or word of mouth. There were also a couple of large-scale e-newsletters that made mention of what I’m trying to do. Now that the radio and newspaper coverage has kicked in…there are e-mails coming in from a lot broader area than before. It’s fairly overwhelming and it’s happening faster than I ever thought it would.
-Thanks to everyone who leaves comments or writes e-mails of support. I really appreciate it, and I wish I could respond to each one. Thanks also–of course–to those who have donated.
-I want to make a point about the donations. I don’t want you to donate if you can’t afford it or if the donation comes out of any other charitable funds you spend. Give to everyone you normally do. When I talk about people donating, I’m hoping it’s folks who regularly blow a few bucks a day on something small or silly–or something they know is bad for them. Like a cup of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, a lottery ticket, or a soft drink. And instead of three latte’s one day…maybe you get two…and you have an extra dollar and you think my quest is neat. Maybe then you donate. And maybe your dollar goes to a big dork’s super bowl commercial instead of some other big dork’s Powerball jackpot.
Because the charity is probably more important at this point than my success. I would love to raise twice as much as I need and do both the commercial and donate a whopping amount to charity. That would probably take corporate involvement, which many of you have suggested. And I’m working on that. I am talking to someone about helping with the media inquiries so I can focus on updating the site more often. If there are any companies out there that want to help me do something unheard of and pull this thing off, I am willing to talk and talking to a few. I don’t care if my commercial ends up looking like something out of NASCAR as long as we can still help this charity.
There won’t be a penny of the funds raised for this quest that goes to me.
-More updates are on the way. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your sister, tell your dog. Thanks again to everyone for the donations.