The following article, written by my friend and awesome reporter Edie Johnson, appeared in the February 7, 2014 edition of the Goshen Chronicle.

Here is the online link:

http://chroniclenewspaper.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140206/NEWS01/140209980/Farm-bill-helps-local-growers

Enjoy!

As followers of this page know when it was announced that the Iowa Hawkeyes would play in the 2014 Outback Bowl I started an internet campaign to get a free Bloomin’ Onion. Why? Because I am both an Iowa alumni and a 4th generation onion farmer.

https://muckville.com/2013/12/08/iowa-to-play-lsu-in-the-outback-bowl-and-i-want-a-free-bloomin-onion-from-outback-steakhouse/

After a brief intense period on Twitter and this blog Outback not only graciously granted my request (and followed me on Twitter)

https://muckville.com/2013/12/14/bloomin-onion-campaign-update-outback-is-giving-me-a-free-bloomin-onion/

Outback also sent me additional Bloomin’ Onion certificates to give away on my blog. The first went to my dad:

https://muckville.com/2013/12/23/the-first-free-bloomin-onion-gift-certificate-is-presented/

But what to do with the rest …?

Well, I then created the Great Muckville Blog Free Bloomin’ Onion Essay Contest!

https://muckville.com/2014/01/02/the-great-muckville-blog-free-bloomin-onion-essay-contest/

And we have had two winners so far!

https://muckville.com/2014/01/24/we-have-our-first-bloomin-onion-winner/

https://muckville.com/2014/01/29/we-have-another-bloomin-onion-gift-certificate-winner/

Well, last night Eve, Caleb and Jonah and I went to our local Outback Restaurant in Middletown, New York, to redeem and enjoy our free Bloomin’ Onion certificate!

And enjoy we did … see the photos below! And I still have a couple of free certificates left so I urge any and all to enter the Great Muckville Blog Free Bloomin’ Onion Essay Contest!

And once again … THANK YOU OUTBACK!

This morning I awoke at 5:50 and drove to the Dunkin’ Donuts in the Village of Florida, NY. I wanted to be the first customer, so as to purchase some of those new fancy donuts, including the cookie dough and brownie batter donuts.

Enjoy this photo essay of the experience:

Eve tried the cookie dough filling and she … and I can’t believe she did this … spit it out.

For shame Eve … for shame!

Here are some additional media pieces I and my family have appeared in the past few years. They are all fairly recent. The outlets include:

The Times Herald-Record, The Goshen Independent, The Chronicle, The Milford Journal, National Onion Association, American Vegetable Grower Magazine & HV Biz

Writers include:

Kathy Kahn, Tom Leek, Tracy Baxter, James Bridge, Jim Gordon Edie Johnson, Rosemary O. Gordon, & Alyssa Sunkin.

They are on a hodgepodge of topics, including Hurricane Irene, Sen. Gillibrand’s Farm Bill event, Sen. Schumer’s visit of the farm my eBay ad, bad weather & a profile of the region.

Enjoy!

As I have mentioned multiple times previously my campaign to raise funds for an editor will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new Crowd Funder Show.

Back on June 30, 2010 the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held its first hearing on the reauthorization of the Farm Bill. It appears the Farm Bill will finally pass in February 2014, about 2 years late.

There were 3 panels that testified, the first panel was Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the second was Roger Johnson, President of the National Farmers Union & Bob Stallman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The 3rd panel was a farmer panel:

Dow Brantley of England, AR
Thomas Johnny Cochran of Sylvester, GA
Chris Pawelski of Goshen, NY
Mark Watne of Jamestown, ND

The video is just of the farmer portion of the hearing, of which I had the rare privilege of participating in:

This link takes you to the hearing page on the Senate Agriculture Committee website. On the page you can download our submitted written testimony and eventually watch the entire hearing:

http://www.ag.senate.gov/hearings/expanding-our-food-and-fiber-supply-through-a-strong-us-farm-policy

This link is for the entire written transcript of the hearing, including the oral hearing:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111shrg66272/html/CHRG-111shrg66272.htm

Blog entries about the hearing:

https://muckville.com/2014/01/03/a-caption-in-the-university-of-iowa-alumni-publication-the-stories-behind-it/

https://muckville.com/2014/01/22/the-wonderful-and-famous-eve/

From my unpublished memoir:

The highlight though came during the panel discussion after we read our submitted written testimony. When Vilsack testified he detailed a plan he had to create 100,000 new farmers. He based it on the same theme as past instituted programs to get 100,000 new law enforcement persons and mentioned the push for new teachers, or something along those lines. When our panel was up we were asked by Senator Chambliss what we essentially thought about Vilsack’s 100,000 new farmer proposal or how we should get young people to stay in farming.

When they got to me with that question I had a problem. Now, I immediately felt that Vilsack’s proposal was a hare-brained scheme that was totally unrealistic and quite laughable. In fact, when Vilsack said it Eve and I literally burst out laughing. But, I couldn’t say that during the hearing. I actually had the hope of getting Vilsack to visit my farm. I had already met with two previous Secretaries of Agriculture, but none had ever come to my farm.

So, when asked the question here is what I said, and this is taken directly from the official, codified and printed Congressional Record of the hearing:

“Going back to what Secretary Vilsack said, the best way to get people young working on the farms and stay on the farms is make it profitable. And the thing is, I am not looking to be a Elmer J. Fudd millionaire and own a mansion and a yacht. I would just like to make a living. That is what I am looking for, make a living.”

I was a broadcasting and film studies student, I hold a Master of Arts degree from one of this nation’s premier research institutions, the University of Iowa. And I was able to work in a Bugs Bunny cartoon quote into my testimony, and that quote is now part of the official Congressional record. It simply doesn’t get any better than that.

On a more serious note, the powers that be need to address the issue of how we farmers get so little of the retail dollar. There are deep, systemic reasons for that problem that need one day to be addressed. We need to encourage production where the bulk of the population lives. These are complex problems but must be addressed if you want to save production agriculture in this country. Make farming a more profitable endeavor and families will continue to farm and people may even eventually enter it. The job numbers will be able to reflect on-farm jobs as a source of meaningful income and economic development. Ignoring this deep systemic problems and instead coming up with gimmicks that won’t work is nothing more than shuffling the deck furniture as the ship sinks.

Here is a copy of the official Congressional Record with that quote (they send you two books after you testify) and my officially submitted written testimony, which you can also download as a pdf file off of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee’s website via this link:

S. Hrg. 111-1024 — Expanding Our Food and Fiber Supply Through a Strong U.S. Farm Policy

Many thanks to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and her wonderful staff. The Senator and her staff are fantastic advocates of agriculture, including and especially their farmers in New York State. I’d also like to thank the Chair of the Committee, Sen. Blanche Lincoln as well as the Ranking Member, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, and their respective staffs.

It truly was an honor and a privilege to be part of this hearing and important legislative process.

As I have mentioned multiple times previously my campaign to raise funds for an editor will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new Crowd Funder Show.

Assemblyman James Skoufis is a freshman member of the NYS Assembly who represents the 99th Assembly District (http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/James-Skoufis). There is a significant amount of farmland, including a great deal of black dirt in his district. One of the Assembly Committees James requested to be was the Assembly Agriculture Committee and he has served with distinction on that committee.

Shortly after taking office he created an Ag Advisory Group made up of a number of farmers and other related stakeholders connected with farming in his district. Last night (January 30th) he held his 2nd formal sit down meeting with the group at the Farmworker Community Center (aka the Alamo) on Pulaski Highway.

First, a little information about the Alamo:

The Alamo has been in existence since the late 1950’s offering a number of outreach and other services to the local farmworker community. Since 1989 Hudson River Community Health has been operating a fantastic healthcare clinic facility on site (http://www.hrhcare.org/medical-clinics/goshen-alamo-health-center) and since 2013 HRC has owned and operated the Community Center. As the pages above relate, a number of fine outreach services are offered at the Alamo now and HRC, under the fantastic leadership of Katherine Brieger (http://www.hrhcare.org/katherine-brieger-ma-rd-cde), has greatly expanded the program and services offered at the Alamo. Before the meeting began Kathy gave an extensive tour of the facilities and programs offered to Assemblyman Skoufis and his Chief of Staff Laurie Tautel.

At 7pm after all the participants arrived the meeting convened. A wide range of topics and issues were raised and discussed, including

* farmworker labor
* the NYSDOL Rural Rep/DIPA Program
* dairy issues
* marijuana issues
* tax issues

amongst many others. Of note: farmworker issues is probably one of the largest and there is a great deal of misinformation and misconceptions held by downstate or urban colleagues of the Assemblyman in the Assembly (and State Senate). James mentioned he is starting the process to invite a number of his colleagues to come up to the region to do a full tour. Kathy very graciously offered the Alamo to be one of the locations for that day’s events. Dates were discussed with the group. CCE Ag Program Leader Maire Ullrich offered her rich expertise and educational facilitating abilities as well. A tentative date of either late May or June was targeted and the group looks forward to this event. We in the local ag community have held numerous similar events over the years!

The meeting ended at 9:30. 

I want to publicly thank Assemblyman Skoufis and his staff for spending so much time with us last night, for listening and addressing our various issues and concerns. The Assemblyman has been a fantastic advocate for his farmers and rural community and has been extremely open to input and feedback on any and all issues related to agriculture.

I also want to thank Kathy Brieger for hosting last night, for her extensive tour, and for all the programs and services she and her excellent staff have worked on and developed over the years for the farmworker and rural community at large.

We have our second winner in the:

The Great Muckville Blog Free Bloomin’ Onion Essay Contest!

Well … someone else has entered and since no one else is … THEY WIN!

The latest winner is my niece Violet (I call her “V”) who lives with her mom, dad and younger sister in New Mexico!

Here is the latest winning entry:

Bloomin’ Onion

by Violet K.

Because I didn’t know what it was, I

Looked it up.

Oh, it looked so good

Oh, with dipping sauce

My tummy’s rumbling already

It’s a Bloomin’ Onion!

Num, num, yum, yum

Onions

Never tried them bloomin’

It looks so good

Oh yum yum yum

Num num

Now that is very creative!!!!

Congratulations V!

Link to first winner: https://muckville.com/2014/01/24/we-have-our-first-bloomin-onion-winner/

Link for the contest: https://muckville.com/2014/01/02/the-great-muckville-blog-free-bloomin-onion-essay-contest/

Link for the award to my dad: https://muckville.com/2013/12/23/the-first-free-bloomin-onion-gift-certificate-is-presented/

As I have mentioned multiple times previously my campaign to raise funds for an editor will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new Crowd Funder Show.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1efvb/ab/72OxNc

What is the Crowd Funder Show and what does it mean to appear on the show? According to their website:

The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability. Each episode focuses the spotlight on six or seven inspiring projects and personal goals that give the viewing audience insight into the campaign, its principal, and the reason(s) why it should come to fruition. The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability.

What is so neat about their crowd funding method, versus Kickstarter’s, is that it is not “all or nothing.” Further, the rewards are much more exciting. Again, from their website:

Viewers can choose to support the projects they watch by contributing directly to the campaign website or by calling a toll-free number. The Crowd Funder Show rewards contributors with sponsored gift cards for the same amount of money they contribute, up to $100. Supporting people and their projects has never been easier so it’s no wonder you can’t help but feel like you’re a part of something special. The Crowd Funder TV Show is an interesting, inspiring program that highlights human ingenuity and co-operation.

When you go to my page you will see locations once can choose from for the gift card include: Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot and Toys R Us. So, if you plan on doing any shopping at any of these locations anyway you are essentially donating to my cause for free. A total win-win!

The following is another brief excerpt from my yet unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.” This small section of my memoir deals with the backstory behind the American Vegetable Grower cover story I was featured in back in 1998. That piece and the subsequent follow-up pieces and editorials by American Vegetable Grower Magazine, along with the initial two CNN pieces produced by Frances Causey (see: https://muckville.com/2013/11/18/the-backstory-on-our-first-two-cnn-appearances/) were a major factor in our ability to accomplish our goals of fixing the federal crop insurance program and eventually securing significant disaster aid.

Before the excerpt … you knew this was coming … as I have mentioned multiple times previously my campaign to raise funds for an editor will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new Crowd Funder Show.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1efvb/ab/72OxNc

What is the Crowd Funder Show and what does it mean to appear on the show? According to their website:

The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability. Each episode focuses the spotlight on six or seven inspiring projects and personal goals that give the viewing audience insight into the campaign, its principal, and the reason(s) why it should come to fruition. The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability.

What is so neat about their crowd funding method, versus Kickstarter’s, is that it is not “all or nothing.” Further, the rewards are much more exciting. Again, from their website:

Viewers can choose to support the projects they watch by contributing directly to the campaign website or by calling a toll-free number. The Crowd Funder Show rewards contributors with sponsored gift cards for the same amount of money they contribute, up to $100. Supporting people and their projects has never been easier so it’s no wonder you can’t help but feel like you’re a part of something special. The Crowd Funder TV Show is an interesting, inspiring program that highlights human ingenuity and co-operation.

When you go to my page you will see locations once can choose from for the gift card include: Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot and Toys R Us. So, if you plan on doing any shopping at any of these locations anyway you are essentially donating to my cause for free. A total win-win!

Memoir excerpt:

Chapter 4

You can’t always get a-what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find, you just might find, you get what you need.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” Mick Jagger & Keith Richards The Rolling Stones (1968)

On the drive home from Washington, D.C. Eve and I talked about what we had just done, and recognized we had two, distinct problems or issues or situations we had to now work on. The first was we needed disaster aid. Our valley now had been hammered 2 out of 4 seasons and we needed special help in which to survive, as a farming region growing onions (eventually our area would be hit by additional significant weather disasters, including a devastating drought in 1999 and an excessively wet year in particular in 2000 Those disasters lead  to massive crop losses throughout the Black Dirt area of Orange County). You can’t sustain these sorts of losses and continue to operate. It’s that simple.

Second, we needed this crop insurance policy fixed. It was not working and virtually worthless and if this was all we would get for the time being, then we needed to get it fixed. So, at this point Eve and I began working on a comprehensive strategy … a battle plan on how to get this done. Now, we knew these issues and the key players and strategies overlapped and went together, hand in hand. Sometimes things would be done according to a plan, sometimes by the seats of our pants, but we committed ourselves to work on it.

Unpaid mind you. Nobody paid us for what we did, it was pure, grassroots volunteerism.

Fortunately agriculture, as I mentioned, is for the most part very bi- partisan. Now we started to really develop our political contacts and our media contacts to get our goals accomplished. It’s been an ongoing process, some things we have been working on for over 16 years, but, we have had a number of pretty significant accomplishments and achievements. Allow me to share with some of the highlights, “best of vignettes” and details of what happened from 1998 forward.

Literally minutes after we walked in the door back from our meeting with Secretary Glickman the phone rang. It was Richard Jones, a reporter for the trade publication American Vegetable Grower Magazine (AVG). Now, let me just pause and say that Richard, his editor at the time Rick Melnick, and his publication did more for our causes and situation than I can possibly relate, or express my appreciation for. And it wasn’t just them, I can’t say enough good things about the various press outlets I have dealt with over the years, ranging from the very small local newspapers, The Warwick Dispatch, The Goshen Chronicle, and  Warwick Advertiser, to the largest local paper the Times Herald-Record, to various reporters at local radio stations WALL and WTBQ (including talk show host Chris Cordani), to numerous trade publications as well as other local, regional and national newspaper, magazine and radio and TV outlets, including and especially Hank Gross of Mid-Hudson News. I have either been quoted or interviewed and have appeared in (or written letters to the editor or op-eds for) hundreds upon hundreds of media pieces over the years. From CBS News network, to WABC Channel 7 in NYC, to CNN, to the New York Times, Crain’s, to Bloomberg News, to various public radio programs to, the BBC and The Hindu, to Vogue Magazine, amongst many others. And for the most part my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of reporters that I have dealt with have been very accurate, very fair, and have written very solid pieces. And if it weren’t for these reporters, and editorial boards, and news outlets, etc …, we would not have been able to accomplish a fraction of what we were eventually able to do. They told our story, conveyed the outrage, and alerted the public as to what we were facing. These people, most especially on the local  level, are unsung and underappreciated heroes. How would the school teacher, or the bricklayer, or the office worker, ever know what we farmers do and what challenges we have faced if not for the stories told by these journalists?

Well, back to 1998 … I answer the phone and the caller tells me his name is Richard Jones and he’s a reporter with American Vegetable Grower and he wants to do a story on crop insurance. I laugh and tell him where we just literally walked in the door from. Evidently he had heard about our lawsuit and saw some of the local media pieces about our current disaster. I obviously gave him an earful and told him I would be e- mailing him a ton more information. I then told him about Glickman’s solemn promise that “no USDA official will ever say ‘CAT is free or cheap’ or that the local onion farmers in the Black Dirt were at fault for their current dilemma because they didn’t purchase the (worthless) buy-up coverage.” I said to him, “I guarantee you that someone of importance you interview will say that to you.” Richard laughed.

A short time later, as Richard was in the midst of working on his story, he called to tell me, “you were right, one of the guys I interviewed said exactly what you told me they would say.” I then told him I’m not surprised and added, ‘the head of the RMA, Ken Ackerman, just sent Rep. Gilman a letter (dated 6/30/98) in which  he said, after first acknowledging all of the deficiencies and problems with the policies at the time, and how they would not make ANY of the substantive changes we suggested for the 1998 crop year, and I quote:

“While RMA is actively seeking ways to improve the onion insurance program in Orange County and other producing areas, producers bear a responsibility in managing their crop production risk by purchasing adequate insurance protection. It is our understanding that Mr. Pawelski and many other New York onion growers selected the Catastrophic Risk Protection (CAT) level of coverage. While the Federal Government fully subsidizes the growers’ insurance premium CAT, CAT is the lowest level of insurance coverage offered under the Federal Crop Insurance Program. If CAT coverage does not provide the level of protection required by the growers, other levels covering up to 75 percent of the producers’ average yield are available that may likely provide more meaningful protection.”

He details the problems with the policies in the letter. This was just  days after Glickman admitted to Eve and me the buy-up policies were virtually worthless and said to us even he wouldn’t buy them himself. After Glickman promised Eve and me that  no USDA official would ever again say something to the effect that CAT is free nor blame us for being at fault for not buying the worthless buy-up coverage, Ackerman, the head of the Federal Crop Insurance Program does exactly that.  This is what Glickman promised no one would do, to a Congressman no less.

What a complete, total jerk. And this told us that Glickman’s word was worthless.

Within a month Richard sent all the people he interviewed copies of the article prior to the publication, so as to ensure accuracy. I burst out laughing when I read the quote from Dave Clauser, the USDA official Richard interviewed and who was at the time RMA’s Chief of Policy Development. Quote:

“I don’t think that CAT is the safety net per se. CAT is a bare bones level of coverage totally subsidized by the government. It’s free. The farmer pays only a $50 administrative fee.”

What I learned later, and this told to me by Richard Jones and Rick Melnick and was revealed in a blunt editorial by Rick in the November, 1998 issue of American Vegetable Grower entitled “The Power of the Press” was that Clauser and the USDA put pressure on American Vegetable Grower to remove the aforementioned quotes by Clauser. Clauser admitted he said it, he (and USDA) just didn’t want those quotes to appear in the piece. As Melnick said in his editorial, “sorry, doesn’t work that way.”

The August 1998 issue of American Vegetable Grower featured our story, entitled “Coming Up Short: New York onion grower finds that crop insurance does not ensure survival.” What I didn’t know until I received my copy was that this story was a cover story, featuring a photograph taken in 1996 by Times Herald-Record photographer Dominick Fiorille, of me standing in the midst of a monstrous pile of rotting, hail destroyed onions (a pile that took 2 years to finally decompose). It had a highlighted quote that brought a smile to the face of my old college mentor, television studies guru and the Director of the Pop Culture Studies Center at Syracuse University, Bob Thompson:

“I have a better chance of Ed McMahon showing up at my door with a check for $10 million dollars than I do of collecting the full value of the policy.” – New York onion grower Chris Pawelski

The article, in well written layman’s terms, explained how crooked the policies were, how out of touch USDA was, and how screwed we were. It was akin to the dropping of an atom bomb. It, along with the subsequent press coverage that followed, combined with our failed lawsuit, now properly motivated the USDA to change course.

The following is another brief excerpt from my yet unpublished memoir, “Muckville: Farm Policy, Media and the Strange Oddities of Semi-Rural Life.” This small section of my memoir deals with the time we had an almost naked man on our fields.

The almost naked guy on panes of glass, on cardboard tables in the middle of our black dirt field

Candy & Andy wasn’t the only odd thing to happen in 1998. Back in mid-fall, probably mid- to late October, I can’t exactly recall, this guy pulls into our yard and asks to talk with us about a photo shoot. He said he was a location scout for photographer David LaChapelle and they wanted to do a shoot on one of her fields. We had already harvested so it was no problem. He then said, “one thing, the person we will be photographing will be almost naked.” We asked almost simultaneously, after a brief pause “define ‘almost.” He said “well, his privates will be covered.” We looked at each other, thought for a moment and then said, “Okay with us.” The location he wanted, the field he was interested in, was right along the main highway, Pulaski Highway. This would be good.

Who is David LaChapelle? According to his website:

“David LaChapelle is known internationally for his exceptional talent in combining a unique hyper-realistic aesthetic with profound social messages. LaChapelle’s photography career began in the 1980’s when he began showing his artwork in New York City galleries. His work caught the eye of Andy Warhol, who offered him his first job as a photographer at Interview Magazine. His photographs of celebrities in Interview garnered positive attention, and before long he was shooting for a variety of top editorial publications and creating some of the most memorable advertising campaigns of his generation. LaChapelle’s striking images have graced the covers and pages of Italian Vogue, French Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Rolling Stone and i-D, and he has photographed personalities as diverse as Tupac Shakur, Madonna, Amanda Lepore, Eminem, Philip Johnson, Lance Armstrong, Pamela Anderson, Lil’ Kim, Uma Thurman, Elizabeth Taylor, David Beckham, Paris Hilton, Jeff Koons, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hillary Clinton, Muhammad Ali, and Britney Spears, to name a few.”

That night I looked at some of his images on the internet and I thought to myself, “wow, this guy is freaking weird.” Now I really couldn’t wait for this.

The photo eventually appeared in the January 1999 issue of Interview Magazine. The photograph was airbrushed so it appears he is naked. He wasn’t naked. He had a thong covering his junk, barely, and they air brushed it out in the final photo. We were the talk of the neighborhood for about a month. What was hysterical was that LaChapelle just loved our valley, he was going to be buying land, move in, etc…. Too funny. We haven’t seen him since. Niceguy though and he sent me the magazine as well as his book “LaChapelle Land.”

As I have mentioned multiple times previously my campaign to raise funds for an editor will be featured in an upcoming episode of the new Crowd Funder Show.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1efvb/ab/72OxNc

What is the Crowd Funder Show and what does it mean to appear on the show? According to their website:

The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability. Each episode focuses the spotlight on six or seven inspiring projects and personal goals that give the viewing audience insight into the campaign, its principal, and the reason(s) why it should come to fruition. The Crowd Funder TV Show highlights various ideas that have been selected based on their merit for creativity, social relevance, and commercial viability.

What is so neat about their crowd funding method, versus Kickstarter’s, is that it is not “all or nothing.” Further, the rewards are much more exciting. Again, from their website:

Viewers can choose to support the projects they watch by contributing directly to the campaign website or by calling a toll-free number. The Crowd Funder Show rewards contributors with sponsored gift cards for the same amount of money they contribute, up to $100. Supporting people and their projects has never been easier so it’s no wonder you can’t help but feel like you’re a part of something special. The Crowd Funder TV Show is an interesting, inspiring program that highlights human ingenuity and co-operation.

When you go to my page you will see locations once can choose from for the gift card include: Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot and Toys R Us. So, if you plan on doing any shopping at any of these locations anyway you are essentially donating to my cause for free. A total win-win!