Putting Flowers for Al and Don to Bed
Back in the spring, though a peculiar memetic convergence of goodwill and Internet technologies, we raised some money for gay couples getting married in San Francisco. Here’s an essay I wrote about the subject. After the California Supreme Court put an end to things in California, we decided to donate the balance of the money remaining to a couple of related and deserving charities.
To my shame, it’s taken me the ensuing four months to sort these donations out. This has been due to:
- Extracting the cash from PayPal
- Sorting out my credit card
- Contacting and organizing the donations with the charities
- Mostly, my own busyness and procrastination
However, the deed is finally done. We had US $2770.40 left to dispense with. We sent US $1670 to Lambda Legal, US $1000.00 to the ACLU Gay and Lesbian Rights Project and kept US $100 for transaction fees (including currency conversions) and admin expenses. Here’s a scanned thank-you letter from Lambda Legal, and I hope to have a receipt from the ACLU shortly (I had to pay by mail to ensure the money went to the appropriate sub-group).
Side note: I was momentarily concerned when I misread the envelope from Lambda Legal. I read “Lambada Legal” and thought “Drat! They’ve finally caught me for dancing the forbidden dance!”
I’m turning off flowers@darrenbarefoot.com and posting this final update on http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/flowers/. Thanks to everyone who donated, who volunteered and who helped with making this insta-cause such a success. Special thanks go out to Todd, who I conscripted to be my volunteer wrangler, and to Patti and Kathy and her kids, who were tireless in their delivery efforts. Lastly, extra-special thanks to 6-year-old Pike, for his excellent self-portrait of himself dropping off flowers. If nothing else, there’s a kid who’s going to grow up without prejudice.
Andrea 
