Hey WWW, how is the world today?

Thought I would write a little piece to exercise my hands this Monday morning and get them ready for the week, it is looking like it will be a busy one.

Jonathan had some major hesitation waking up this morning; you would think he was much older by the way he likes to sleep.  Last weekend on Saturday he slept in until 11:15, which set him up for a pretty good mood the rest of the day.  Since he slept in, so did I, and it had the same effect on my mood as well.  Our plan to dress him as Charlie Brown for Halloween this year is still on, even though when he found out about it he decided to grow some hair, guess he didn’t want people making fun of him.  I guess I can’t blame him, I am not a fan of people making fun of me either; I can tolerate it though.

I am searching for assistance in the promotion of 200million-nickels.com, or perhaps even monetary contributions.  I wanted to explain how that idea got started since I don’t talk about it too much on the site.  I want to explain it, but I really can’t, the truth is I don’t really know myself what stirred in me to have this dream of a company that can employ and house homeless, rebuild their lives, train them for a future.   I do know that it started when I was very young, maybe somewhere around age 8-12.  I know that since then my sentient mind has been working on ways to make it a reality.  The truth is I could never do it myself, unless I won the lottery.  If I did win the lottery you can bet that I would do it all myself on the financial side, but I haven’t.  That is why 200million-nickels.com is out there, to raise the capital that myself and a group of others feel would be needed to launch a venture such as planned.  I have many thoughts about that amount, is that too much, will it be enough.  Truth is I don’t know.  I would think that with some creative buying and solid negotiations it would cover such things as housing, industrial space and retail space along with the inventory and fixtures for all of these locations.  Then will come the training, development, payroll, health care and transportation of the initial workforce to get this off the ground.  There must exist the lawyers, accountants and such as well.  Factoring all of this I am fairly confident that there would be enough capital to launch and sustain until a profit is made.  Turn around time for this should be relatively quick based on the plan of action.

So, I have told this story before but it has been long enough ago that I can tell it again without feeling like I am always telling it, you know that feeling.   I was in Dayton, OH around Christmas time in 1998.  The company that I was working for at that time had a holiday party at the Crowne Plaza downtown.  Myself and the now ex-wife were staying at the hotel as did most of the people who attended.  The party was very long, lasting many hours after the food was served so by the time it was over hunger had set back in.  Knowing that there was a McDonalds a couple blocks away we decided that we would make a quick trip there for a snack.  While in line at the drive-through we noticed a lady, obviously homeless making her way from car to car ahead of us in the line.  She kept being clearly turned away by every car, and then she made her way to ours.  Amazingly there is just about nothing about this night I remember, the food, the party, the color of the room, what music was played; I even have to look up the hotel to remember what it was called.  But these few minutes that I am talking about here I remember as if they just happened.  This dirty beggar lady approached the car on the passenger side and the person that I am with completely refuses to roll down the window and holds the switch so I can’t roll it down either.  So I motion to her to come to my side of the car.  Clearly this lady was just trying to talk about something and it seemed pretty urgent, why didn’t anyone want to listen?  So she came to my side of the car and she asks me if I will buy her a cheeseburger, not the whole thing, she had 77 cents.  She knew that they cost more than that and asked me to take the 77 cents and pay for the rest.  I told her to keep her 77 cents and that I would get her a cheeseburger, just wait out on the sidewalk for me to get through the line.  She did, and I didn’t.  I did not get her a cheeseburger, instead I got her a double cheeseburger extra value meal, supersized with a coke.  I put the change that I got back out of the $20.00 used to pay for the food, hers along with ours, in the bag with her food.  I pulled forward and handed her the meal and drink and she started to cry.  She was so thankful; I can’t even begin to describe it, as if I had just saved her life.  She did not even know that there was money inside as well, she was just so happy to get hot food on a cold winter night.  I pulled away and that is really all I remember about this night, I don’t even remember driving back to the hotel.  Can you imagine what I felt like when I stopped and gave her that meal?  I felt like a flippin’ angel, and if you were to ask me today; what is your ideal job, what do you want to do?  My answer would be, “I want to be an Angel”.

There are many more stories I could share with you just like the one above about run-ins with the homeless and hitchhikers, but that could get a little bit boring for you to read through.  The reason I tell it is to help you see where I am coming from with 200million-nickels.com.  My dream job is to be an Angel, if I could choose to do anything under the sun it would be that.  The capital raised through 200million-nickels.com would allow me to essentially have that job, and employ others to be the same.  Helping to make this whole project a reality would give you that title as well in the eyes of those that it benefits, even if they never know who you are, the beautiful part is that they may learn to find the Angel in everyone that they encounter.  Later you will see how this ties together into product offerings and design of these products.   For now I want you to go to 200million-nickels.com and make a contribution, even if it the lowest transaction of $0.40, who can’t spare that much to help tackle the ever-growing issue of homelessness here in our own back yards?  Whether you contribute or not, please at least tell a friend or two about this effort to help us spread the word about what we are trying to do.

Thank you.

Take care web.