The Sean McCabe Memorial Fundraiser is off to a good start. In five days we have raised $2,000 with contributions ranging from $5 to $500. We are well on our way to making our goal, but still have quite a bit of work to do.
So far we have had 32 people donate to this very important cause. FasterSkier often has that many visits 10 minutes! If each visitor contribute $5 to $10, we could easily rach our goal of $12,000 by the end of the day tomorrow.
It has been inspiring and gratifying to see members of the ski community step forward and contribute to the McCabe family. Over the course of my life I have been a part of many different ski communities in many parts of the country. Our local communities are strong. BUt this fundraiser has already demonstrated that the community extends beyond town, county, and even state borders. Donations have come from Alaska, Colorado, Masschusetts, Vermont, Wyoming, Minnesota and more!
But 32 contributions are nowhere near enough. I know we can do better, and I know we can achieve this goal.
For more information on this fundraiser, please visit here.
Do donate right now, you can do so at SkiReg.com.
To view Sean’s artwork, and purchase prints and original works, visit his site.
Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, and thank you to all the companies who have donated gifts for contributors. We have had several new sponsors come on this week!
![Sean McCabe](http://images.fasterskier.com/2009/11/lbhnnqrmhvsodfzdv.jpg" "Sean McCabe")
2 comments
Sven
December 10, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Because I am writing under a pseudonym I will take the opportunity to write a few things that I normally wouldn’t if I were not anonymous. I am disappointed to see the donations to the Sean McCabe Memorial Fundraiser loose their momentum. Maybe I can write a few things to either inspire you (or guilt you) into getting off your wallet and donating.
I never met Sean, and I live in a completely different state. And yet I have been motivated by two forces that have driven me to give to his memorial fundraiser: 1) gratitude for what I now enjoy; and 2) a certain disquietude with my own relative abundance. I also feel like I can identify with Sean–I am the father of young children, and I have similar interests. Plus I have a huge admiration for Sean’s many talents.
Now to get a little philosophical. Are you really being generous if you don’t have to stretch a little to help someone else? Are you really being generous if deep down you are hoping to win some cool skis with the raffle? (My donation happens to be under a different name…so I’m not trying to get extra points by writing this). I know that we all have had economic setbacks, but I also know that donating $5-10 simply requires a little re-ordering of priorities and perhaps a little sacrifice.
Now to be a little personal. I finished my graduate and post graduate training not long ago. Now I have a job that pays the rent, allows me to pay my debt obligations that I incurred during grad school, and support a family. For the past 10 years I have been looking forward to the day that I could purchase some new race skis. I thought last year would be the year, but instead I bought a new pair of race skis for my wife (it really wasn’t that generous…that move went a long way toward marital happiness). This year my “new ski fund” was getting to the point that could be able to buy some new skis at the end of this season. But I did something different. I donated that money to Sean’s Memorial Fund (I admit, I had to do it in two separate donations because selfishness was holding some of the money back initially). I don’t have any reason to brag (again, my donations were under a different name). I say this only because now I feel that I have done what my conscience has told me to do–not because I somehow felt guilty, but because it was simply the right thing to do.
So I want to challenge you to give what your conscience tells you to give. However small or large the amount, give something. You’ll feel like a better human being for giving.
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