Something a little different today, For the last few months, I’ve felt as if I was trapped in a never-ending vortex of horrible news, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I have felt depressed, dejected and powerless, as I’m sure many of you have too.
Then ever so slowly, things have started to shift. More people standing together and fighting back. And there have been glimmering signs of hope.
Then a few days ago, this landed in my email inbox, from my friend Luis at the Sacramento LGBT Center:
“On March 24, the federal government abruptly terminated a behavioral health grant through SAMHSA that supported critical free mental health services at the Sacramento LGBT Community Center. We weren’t informed until April 1—after services had already been delivered. The sudden cancellation of our grant left us with a loss of nearly $500,000 and some incredibly hard decisions to make, without time to prepare.”
The Sacramento LGBT Center is our queer cultural and social hub here in Sactown. They just found out that they are losing $500,000 in federal funding, money that they were promised and that has mostly already been budgeted and spent on mental health services.
The Center puts on our annual Pride events, and takes care of so many of the more vulnerable folks in our community.
They’re running an emergency fundraising campaign for $150,000, so we thought we’d do what we could to help.
For everyone who donates at least $20, I’ll send a free eBook copy of my “love letter to Sacramento,” The River City Chronicles. Each $100+ donation will be entered into a drawing for a bigger prize. Right now that’s a signed first edition trilogy of my Ariadne Cycle, but as the campaign goes on, I am hoping others will join me to offer prizes and freebies as well.
I’ve set a goal of $10,000 – it’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s something we all can do in this moment, to strengthen our queer community here in Sacramento.
We stand together, or we fall apart.
I hope you will consider giving what you can:
And if you want to add an eBook to the freebies list or a bigger prize for the drawing, let me know!