Can we keep giving free bracelets?
We hope so! All the wristbands have been donated to the Pay It Forward Foundation, along with the costs of shipping them, by one of our major donors, Charley Johnson, of SnugZUSA. You have greeted them with great enthusiasm, and Pay It Forward bracelets have made their way to nine countries, on every continent except Antarctica.
But we cannot ask Charley to fund these any longer. So far, he has donated 300,000 bracelets, the last shipment delivered the second week in September . But by the time this third shipment arrived, so many requests had been received that almost the entire shipment was gobbled up by “back orders.”
That’s a donation of $39,000.00 (in kind) that Charley has already given out of his own pocket, and that doesn’t even reflect the cost of mailing them, which we estimate cost him about $12,000. |
So now we have no more bracelets. We can’t turn to Charley again, so we are turning to you.
 These bracelets are one of the simplest, but most powerful ways to increase exposure of the Pay It Forward concept everywhere.
Will you help us find a way to continue to provide them? Do you know of any major Donor or Corporate Sponsor who would help us purchase another batch of them? Will you talk to your employer, or the head of your church? Or ask the manager of a large chain store where you shop? Or a Rotary or Lions Club in your town?
Will you?
Readers of the novel, Pay It Forward, will remember the beautiful scene
toward the end of the book, when Reuben is standing at the microphone on a makeshift stage built in front of the City Hall, addressing a crowd of thousands, spread out through the streets before him in the small city of Atascadero, California.
“Don’t ask me if people will really pay it forward,” Reuben says. “Tell me. Will you? Will each of you really do it? It’s your world. So you decide.”
Then he and Arlene start moving through the crowd of well-wishers, in the candlelight :
The streetlights had not come on. On purpose? he wondered....On every block thousands of candles glowed, lighting up the street like the full moon that would rise momentarily.....Here and there a hand reached out to lightly touch his shoulder or his sleeve.
A woman reached out and touched Reuben’s hand. “I will.” she said.
Then the man beside her said the same,. “I will.”
They passed a mounted policeman on a big bay horse. Sitting still and straight, watching. In one hand he held the reins, in the other, a candle. “I will,” he said looking down as they passed.
That’s what we’re asking you here, today. Can you help the Pay It Forward Foundation find another source to provide another shipment of free bracelets? You tell us. It’s up to you. |
