A request. Please read
then
before proceeding.
Thanks.
After 25 years of choosing jobs almost solely based on making time to pursue “my art,” and just as many years of procrastinating making said art, of sorta kinda making said art now and then, I’ve decided it’s time to make a big change.
In the five years that I’ve lived in Western Mass, I’ve gotten to know an amazing group of people, 20-30 year olds in Turners who didn’t succeed in high school and now, just a few years later, are plugging away at shitty jobs they hate, passing the nights away in front of the TV, the XBOX, sitting at the bar, day after day, repeat until dead.
Incredibly many of them – as is often the case for people who aren’t meant for, or just aren’t ready for school when they’re adolescents – are brilliant, vibrant young people whose aspirations haven’t been deferred but are seemingly permanently abandoned, in large part simply for want of a little nurturing.
With a little nurturing from you, I know the Thrive Project can help change some of those young people’s lives for the better (and, I hope, create a model for other towns to do the same), a cause I feel is at least as worth my time as hoping to someday write the Pretty Good American Novel, and one that I’m much more built for, as an incredibly social being who’s spent way too much time trying to coop himself up in a room alone, tapping away at keys.
Please consider helping, with feedback, with ideas, with connections, by performing at benefits, by volunteering, by taking on an apprentice or intern Thrive client, by training me to be a grantwriter, sure, but especially for this first year, until nonprofit status is achieved and grants are written and volunteers are trained and curriculum is developed and space is renovated and rented, with MONEY.
Please click here and send a dollar, ten, a hundred, a thousand . . . I’m putting what I have into starting Thrive. It’s a tiny fraction of what we need. If you think that this is a worthy endeavor, and that, for those of you who know me, even if just from here, that I’m a good person to do it (with an amazing start-up team and a great, supportive, but largely also broke townful of people behind me), then please, do what you can do, financially, and yes, please, also offer Thrive any of that other great stuff too.
Also, come “like” and follow Thrive on Facebook, and on Twitter @thriveproject.
This is my first pledge drive, gang, and I’m no Allen Chartock, so I hope this doesn’t wrankle and isn’t inappropriate to post here. It truly is coming from that place we like to call “the heart.” Thanks for reading.
