For raising money, whether for charity or a personal cause, GoFundMe.com is quickly becoming the go-to source for crowd funding. I have a dear friend who is raising money for her first published book, one of our interns from last summer is funding her housing cost for an internship at Disney, and as I have written so many times before, many charitable people use this in order to offset the costs of families in the midst of tragedy. And it works.
For raising money, whether for charity or a personal cause, GoFundMe.com is quickly becoming the go-to source for crowd funding. I have a dear friend who is raising money for her first published book, one of our interns from last summer is funding her housing cost for an internship at Disney, and as I have written so many times before, many charitable people use this in order to offset the costs of families in the midst of tragedy. And it works.
I love the fact that the city of La Mesa has joined this wagon train in preserving its traditional Flag Day Parade and asking the community to help support it. It takes a lot of work to find sponsors for all of the events in East County, but thanks to the generosity of our local businesses, most events are well funded.
GoFundMe is a perfect way to get the people in the community involved. There are many people that would love to support any given cause or event, but at the sponsorship levels that most events request, only the elite can help. This is the perfect moneymaking machine and there are plenty of people around that would gladly donate what they can to help those in need or to keep something in their community thriving.
All of our city and community leaders should take a look at this type of investment in and about the community. Can you imagine what projects that are not funded by our city and county governments that could make a way into existence with a lot of small donations from people that want something in the community?
School supplies for children, programs that have been obliterated from the school system, renovating a historic site. All of these and more could easily be done in this manner. People are generous, but sponsorships are very costly and let’s face it, most of us do not make that kind of money these days.
I have watched it work well with many families in crisis here in East County and see no reason why it cannot be used proactively for things that have been cut by city and state budgets. Our local leaders need to start thinking outside of projected budgets and past rainy day reserves. There are a plethora of ideas that come before city councils, city managers and our local leaders that never make it past the first request because we tend to think in checkbook style.
If the need is there, and it is something the community wants or needs to make their community a better place, they will help fund it. It might be in small amounts, but small amounts quickly turn into large dollars.
This could very well be one way of solving many of the problems in our community. Imagine turning a deadly intersection into a safe pathway for pedestrians without dipping into governmental budgets. This could also work with hiring special patrols to watch our children as they travel back and forth to school. And if it is not in the budget, please start doing some background checks on the people you let in our children’s school. There has been a rash around the county, and East County is right in the mix of it where vans are trying to pick up our children, aides are going whacko in our classrooms and the number of hit and runs are getting ridiculous.
It is worth a shot, and in times when money is tight everywhere, every dollar collected can be a dollar well spent on building up our communities and the amenities that need desperate help. It might seem far fetched to some, but I have watched many raise thousands of dollars for the most frivolous things, but at the same time raising the same amount for things that really matter.
