Fundraisers for down on luck people

Fundraisers are a fairly regular thing here, too. I've never known of one that the family put on for themselves. It's always a family member or close friend.

Interestingly, that was put forth as one of the frequent "solutions" to the health care crisis before the ACA passed!
Seriously, do a search. It showed up here all the time.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

As I'm sure most folks know, just having insurance isn't much of a hedge against serious illness, financially. Most people who go bankrupt from illness or injury have adequete insurance, but the attendant loss of income and other incidental costs sink them.

Just a few bucks in cash at times like those can fill an empty table or a gas tank. Bless you for enduring your own hard times independantly. Nobody can take the pride you should feel for that away from you....Joe

That's why outside disability insurance is probably even more important than health insurance.

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The garden's getting bigger this year. Again.

I saw a flyer for a girl who was holding a fundraiser for herself. Guests were expected to bring donations to a party she was holding. Was she physically ill? Down and out? Nope. Only looking to raise money for herself.

sidepasser, it had been set up by a former employer of dh. We'd been paying in even after changing companies for over 20 years. Thought it was supposed to be growing. Got a letter last summer that it was about $2,000 in the red and we had to pay that to keep the account open. DH has been mostly unemployed for the last few years, it really hurt us making the payments into it, and even if we came up with the money, there was no guarantee they wouldn't ask for even more the next month. We made the mistake of not knowing investments well enough to know what the adviser was up to. _He_ never missed his commission over all those years, though. And never bothered to let us know the company was apparently losing all we had given them.

6 years ago I was working a full time job plus lots of overtime. I had an 7 month old child, and was pregnant with my second child.
In a life changing event my daughter was born at 28 weeks. Not only did she have an extremely hard challenge ahead of her, the event left myself disabled and have to quit my job. My husband was working a full time job at the time as well, but I was the bread winner as well as the one that had insurance offered.
When I lost my job, and my daughter was in the NICU for 79 days... totaling more than $2 million in medical bills... we were sunk and had no idea what to do.

My daughter is 6 now, and has cerebral palsy. She utilizes a wheelchair. She uses a feeding tube. She faces struggles all her life.

We have never received money from a fundraiser. We were thankfully able to pick ourselves up. We have managed. It got really tough when my husband broke his back and wasn't able to work.

But even having all this, when a local boy with SMA had a fund raiser to help him and his family- we gave happily. We have been able to count our blessings and help those who need some extra help.

I completely understand being jealous or even upset that everyone else seems to get the help that you yourself deserve as well. But sometimes we need to step back and think about what we do have.

If everybody was as smart as some of us think we are, none of us would ever need any help at all.

Life is not like that.

We have insurance through dh's work but our 7 week old son had heart surgery 3 weeks ago yesterday and Friday I received a bill for $46,000 and some change. Dh missed work a lot too because 1st ds had a nicu stay then his surgery stay and multiple appointments. his cardiologists and hospitals are 75 and 125-130 miles from home. we don't have anyone helping us financially in our community either. a HT-er did pay for our meals at the hospital during ds's surgery by sending us gift cards we could use. that was such a HUGE blessing!! The costs are ongoing, I'm not sure how we will deal with them (we have 8 other children so they need care too) but I knw we'll make it one way or another. God is still there through the bad stuff and he'll care for us .
I'm sorry you are alone in your struggles irl. It hurts to be alone in hard times.

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Hialeahs Dairy Goats, raising high quality Nubians, ( mini nubes coming soon) and Nigerian Dwarfs!


What we use for Homeschooling
http://homeschoolingtorah.com/dap/a/?a=240

I don't see anything wrong with people putting on fundraisers to help others. I guess that falls into the category called "community".

I injured myself last month - broke my leg and did tendon/ligament damage and had to have surgery with a bunch of metal holding things together. I'm fortunate that we have good insurance, the money to cover deductibles, a job that I can do telecommuting and an understanding employer that has worked with me on this. I have both short term and long term disability but that would be a cut in income. So far I have spent over 45 days flat on my back with another 3 weeks to go of no weight bearing. Tomorrow is my first rehab/physical therapy session, just to start working on me for moving my ankle. They have been telling me it will take a year for me to fully recover.

I normally don't post these type of things but it is useful to illustrate a point.

A friend of mine broke his leg Saturday in an even worse way (3 bones broken and his leg was just flopping around. They have insurance but I know that paying the deductible and co-payments will be a real stretch for them. I think he will have a problem with work so income will be a problem for them as well. It is gratifying to see all the people stepping up to help them out in all sorts of ways - abd yes, there wiil probably be a fundraiser for them to which I will gladly donate.

We had people asking what they could do to help us out. For the most part it turns out not much. I even had one friend who offered to come from 4 states away to help for a bit with the farm and planting. It was a nice thought but not very practical as I won't be in any shape to take care of things after he left. So even though this year of producing from the farm is shot I feel lucky to have friends go the distance. I do have a friend who is mowing and keeping an eye on things. I'm speaking with someone else about them taking our hay off, etc.

There was an HTer who had some major medical bills and I donated some money (along with others) to help them out. I haven't done that with every person on HT that has a need but I wish I could.

I guess my point is that I can't imagine why folks deciding to help someone out and letting others know there is a way to help out would be considered a bad thing.

Neighbors and friends helping each other out in time of need seems pretty normal to me. To the original poster, I'm sorry that folks didn't help you out.

Mike