It's A Beautiful Day . . .

Sunday was a gorgeous day, spring was starting to pop out all over. I was still emotionally raw from the St. Baldricks' shaving event the day before, so I did what I always do when I have thinking to do - I headed outside. I am truly blessed in that I can just walk out to my shed, strap on snowshoes, and head up the mountain in my back yard.
Here I am maybe 1/4 of the way up and starting to get a good perspective of the neighborhood. I was going to post borrowed pictures of the event on Saturday but I realized that wouldn't fit - with very rare exceptions, I never post any one else's photos here - this is, after all, my sense of place. I chose not to take pictures on Saturday, except a couple; I chose to cheer everyone else on and soak it all in. Those that take lots of photos on a regular basis will understand. There are several places you can go to see excellent pictures: Jane posted some, Brian posted some, Katherine posted some, and there are tons floating around on Facebook. With live coverage on local TV, you can even order a copy of the DVD from Pipa.
You know you are starting to gain some elevation when you have the eagles looking over their shoulders. And speaking of eagles, over 50 folks donated "on my head" - some of them multiple times - raising over $3300 to help cure childhood cancer. Almost half of the donations were from people I have never met in person.
I am almost up to the lake above my house. Several foxes shadowed me as I dragged my fat butt up the mountain, as curious about me as I was about them. Sometimes they observed me openly, sometimes they crouched down and spied on me, apparently completely unaware their dark heads were silhouetted against a snowy background.
I learned a bit about myself in the fundraising process. Folks tend to form a shell, especially those folks of a certain age, maybe my age. There is room to move around in the shell, but not really any room to grow. Any growth is going to involve cracking the shell, and its going to hurt, at least until you grow a new shell. I discovered I don't really like fundraising, because I'm sensitive. To ask people for money, you are putting yourself out there. I'm not good at asking for things - I'm the guy who will buy the tool or figure out another way to do the project before knocking on the neighbor's door. With a cause like children's cancer, the cause isn't really controversial, it is something that is more or less universally agreed to be a problem in need of a cure through greater funding. Since the cause is so self-evident, asking people for money becomes personal; of course they agree the charity needs funding, but why now, and more pointedly, why give the funds because I asked. I'm really good at donating my money for causes, especially local non-profits, but asking others to donate is a whole different thing.
This is the view from the very top, looking toward Ballyhoo and the Dutch Harbor side. It is a great hike for anyone who hasn't made it before. This is the double-edged sword that is fundraising - you are stunned and humbled by the generosity of some people (my college room mate from almost 30 years ago - who I have not seen in the interim - gave $100, for example), and then there is the other side. It's not like I went door-to-door, but I did email quite a few folks, I put it on Facebook, and I pestered people who read this blog pretty regularly for a couple weeks. I do not check my blog stats more than once or twice a year, but out of curiosity I'm looking at them now. It looks like around 8,000 people read this blog with some regularity, from 77 countries. 58.51% of them use Internet Explorer, 21.64% of them use Firefox, 17.13% of them use Safari, and 2.27% use Chrome. DSL is the most common connection speed but 10% are still on dial-up, and 4.09% are on a T1 (the lucky dogs). When I started blogging from out here 3 years ago, Unalaska readers were almost unheard of but now that city ranks #2, behind only Anchorage, in number of hits. Garden City is #3, no idea why. And, my pig-headed logic dictated, apparently only 0.6% wanted to help cure cancer in children. That is, of course, not correct. Everyone wants to help cure cancer in children. I would even suspect that any major charitable organization would be absolutely thrilled to have a 0.6% donation rate from a fundraising appeal. But still . . . I'm not a major fundraising organization, I'm Steve. . . . .

Here's the odd thing: there are a number of people who read my blog that I have helped in the past, either directly or indirectly. So when I wrote in this space that St. Baldricks was important to me, it was interesting to note donations were pretty much inversely proportional to any help I have given in the past, with some rare exceptions.
This is the view as I work down from the ridge into the gully and prepare to follow my tracks back down to my house. Looking back on this fundraising experience, my first, I can almost equate it to the Kubler-Ross grief cycle. During my "anger" phase, I told Goldfish I was going to make "Sense of Place" a private blog, by invitation only, open to only those that supported St. Baldricks' (it's easy to do, we have a family blog that is closed and requires a log-in to access). Goldfish told me I was an idiot, and she's right - she is very wise.

I'm at the acceptance stage now though, and I have to say I am both very glad fundraising is over and I can get back to wandering around the island taking pictures, and very excited for next year when Team Emery will again raising money for St. Baldricks. To all the other shavees, I am so proud of you. If I was competitive in fundraising, I apologize. I think by getting a number out there, it did push the pace a bit and raised the bar overall, giving the event as a whole a better result.

For all you wonderful donors out there, sometime in the next week or two you'll be getting a thank you post card in the mail. That isn't me being competitive and setting the stage for next year - it's because my Mom taught me that was what you did when someone was really nice. Cheers everyone, and thank you.