Have you ever felt with all your heart and soul like you needed to be somewhere for a certain event, like there's no way in hell you could possibly miss it? As if some cosmic forces were calling you to be there? "Where there's a will, there's a way."
This past Saturday morning, I received news that my Chamorro mom had passed away. You can read more about that and our relationship here. She died on Guam but her body is being flown to Saipan for the funeral. I have not been home to Saipan since I left over 10 years ago, though I've always meant to visit over the years.
Before I continue with this, I just wanted to take the time to say that in light of this recent tragedy in my life, the true human heart of the Steemit community has really been put on display for me, as the enormous outpouring of support and love I have received has truly been more than anything I could have ever expected. I truly, truly appreciate you all for all your kind words and for your donations to the cause. Words cannot possibly express the true scope and depth of the gratitude I feel for you all right now. THANK YOU.
Anyway, over the years, I kept on making excuses and prioritizing other things, instead of putting aside the money to make a trip home for a visit. I even intended to go home for my high school reunion earlier this year, but that ended up not happening. Now, however, things have changed. This death in the family is calling me home, and I have to be there for it. Unfortunately, I do not have the money required to buy my ticket home, so I've been racking my brain the past few days trying to figure out how to make it home in time for the funeral.
Earlier this morning, I was chatting with @sircork over in his @YouAreHOPE Discord channel, and he mentioned an idea of trying to host an art auction fundraiser on Steemit to try to raise the funds that I need. I originally was going to try to get people to donate their art to me as incentive rewards for a GoFundMe campaign that I was planning on creating, but then I found out that it takes several days to even withdraw the money from such a campaign, and I would not have received the money in time anyway. So I've spent the majority of today trying to refine that idea that @sircork proposed, trying to figure out how I could possibly carry out such a fundraiser.
Then I found out through @aggroed over at the @MinnowSupport Project Discord channel about this amazing new tool/system for auctions on the Steem blockchain called @steembay. I checked out their post from yesterday announcing that it was up and running, and started to think that maybe I could try to use that to execute this idea of hosting an art auction as a fundraiser to get me some funds in time to buy my ticket home.
It's truly been so depressing for me to see that all flights I'm finding from Salt Lake City (SLC) to Saipan (SPN) are upwards of $2300, knowing that I don't have any sort of money like that right now. This is a screenshot from expedia, but all the other sites I've checked bring up similar results, if not exponentially higher ticket prices (even after clearing the cookies in my browser, and even after trying different dates around my initial search).
So I'm making this post now to reach out to all the amazing artists we have here on the Steem blockchain, to see if any of you would be interested in helping me execute this fundraiser by donating some of your artwork towards such an auction, with the proceeds going towards helping me buy my ticket home. I would be eternally grateful to any of you who decides to help me with this through your donations of art, as well as anyone who ends up participating and bidding for the pieces of art that (hopefully) end up getting donated for the auction.
Raising $2300-$2400 in such a short time is such a daunting task, I know. It seems impossible, I know. But like I said at the beginning, "where there's a will, there's a way." That's why I am hoping that there will be more kind-hearted souls out there who read this who will be willing to help me out. Please leave a comment below if you would be willing to participate in this fundraiser. Thank you so much for reading this.
I hope to hear from you all soon! I also hope that you will consider resteeming this post so that more people can see it. Every little bit of help counts, and it is all so greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Check out some of my other posts!
What You Need to Know About Telling Veterans "Thank You" on Veterans Day
The Tossed and Forgotten - An Ode to Our Veterans
How I Achieved 200 Followers in My First Month on Steemit
Why I Chose to Invest $100 in Steem
My First Week on Steemit
The Dawn of The Dancing Dreamers
The Dawn of Friendship In a New Age
I'm Just an Island Boy Living in Utah who Loves EDM
!steemitworldmap 40.754539 lat -111.902618 long Salt Lake City, Utah local Steemian! d3scr