Sean McCabe, artist, teacher, father and athlete passed away on November 7th, 2009 after fighting cancer. Sean is survived by his wife, Laura, and their two young daughters. Sean was an avid outdoorsman – a skier, climber, and general adventurer. Laura McCabe is a two-time Olympian in Cross-Country skiing. You can read the article on Sean’s passing here.
As many of you know, Sean was a highly skilled artist, and many of his paintings depict cross-country ski scenes. The purpose of this fundraiser is to raise the money to purchase two of Sean’s paintings for his daughters. One of these paintings depicts one of the girls, the other includes Sean himself, and the idea is that they should have this connection with their father for perpetuity. Sales of Sean’s artwork is a necessary means of support for the family, so this fundraiser ensures the girls can keep the paintings, and provides financial support to a beloved member of the ski community in a time of crisis.
The two paintings are depicted below. Prints of both are available for sale on Sean’s website, www.seanmccabestudio.com. Much of Sean’s other work is also available on the site – both original paintings and prints. Please take a minute to check it out – if only to appreciate his talent.
!["Start 'Em Young"](http://images.fasterskier.com/2009/12/SM1014M4.jpg" "Start 'Em Young")
The total amount we are trying to raise is $12,000. SkiReg.com has generously donated collection services, waiving all fees. Every cent donated will go directly to the McCabe family.
As a thank you for your contribution, every donor will be entered into a drawing for a number of gifts donated by cross-country ski related businesses. These businesses have made significant contributions to show their support for the McCabe family. The following is a current list of supporters from the ski industry, along with their contributions. Our thanks to each and every one for their support. It is inspiring to see the community rally to this cause. We will be adding more businesses to the list over the next week.
Fischer -> A pair of Carbonlite Hole Skis
Rossignol -> A pair of Delta NIS Skate Skis
Nordic UltraTune -> 2 stonegrinds
Sauce Headwear -> Headwear
Toko -> 5 JetStream Powders (30g) and 5 JetStream Blocks (20g) of various colors.
Skida -> Hats
CXC -> Rudy Project Sunglasses, DVDs and Hats
West Yellowstone Ski Festival -> 2 2010 November Trail Passes
Seeley Hills Classic -> 2010 or 2011 race entry, 2009 race hat and race shirt
!["The Circus is Coming to Town"](http://images.fasterskier.com/2009/12/SM1016M4.jpg" "The Circus is Coming to Town")
If you know of a business that would be interested in contributing that is not on the list, please let us know.
While the dollar amount needed is significant, we are confident that we will rise to the challenge. If each adult visitor to FasterSkier contributes between $5-$10 we could hit it in a few hours!
We will be posting periodic updates on this page, so check back to see how close we are to the goal.
Access the contribution page at SkiReg.com.
The SkiReg.com page does list a date for the fundraiser event. This date can be disregarded, and is only included because SkiReg.com is an event registration site.
If you have any questions regarding this fundraiser, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
3 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.
kamikaze
December 14, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Sven, I truly admire your sincerity of the situation and to the McCabe family. Your contribution- giving up a good pair of skis for a family in need- and your words have made a significant impact.
What bothers me is when Sabot posted his vent, the fund was 43% of its target goal- the number is now 53%, but if we factor in Swix’s $1000, that accounts for an increase of more than 8%… meaning in response to both you and Sabot, an extra 2% was donated by the ski community.
Maybe I have got the numbers mixed up on how far we have come, but lets look forward: if $6000 is donated in $10 per FasterSkier reader, than 600 donators is all we need. Simple math. Whats not so simple is understanding where are those 600.
I’m an undergraduate student, living out of my (small) pocket to race and ski- what college student is not? Yet I too managed to sacrifice my 1.5 Starbuck Lattes of the day to give something to the McCabe family (I actually hate Starbucks, but this is Sabot’s math here) There are many little things you could give up for ONE DAY to make a contribution- once we succeed, those pictures will last a lifetime to the McCabe family. Caculate THOSE numbers.
I am especially calling out to the younger generation, those who might not yet have full-time jobs and might have pockets larger or smaller than mine. You might feel intimidated by the generous donations by Sven and Swix- $10 is a very small amount of $12000. What matters is you can say you were a part, no matter how small, of the community that cared for the McCabe family. Is there anything in your life that you could give up for one day to help the McCabe family? There has to be more than 600 FasterSkier readers out there that can do that.
mygatt
December 18, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Kamikaze, I think you have the numbers mixed up a bit: of the 43% reached by the same day as Topher’s vent, half of that was in direct response to the vent. It was at 21% when Topher’s article was published. So we made some serious headway.
I agree that finding several hundred people to donate 10 bucks each just shouldn’t be that hard, considering the size of the FasterSkier community. LET’S GET IT FINISHED THIS WEEKEND!!! (By the 20th…) We’re now at 77%, need about 2800 bucks. That’s under 300 donations at 10 bucks a pop.
Cheers to everyone who’s already taken part. Jen