URGENT PLEA FOR HELP

On Friday night - I got a call on the hotline at 1:00 a.m.  Now I sleep with the phone by me in case there's an emergency so it will wake me up.  The woman had told me the day before she didn't want to hear from me about where she could find legit work that wouldn't hassle her because she doesn't have a state ID card.  She had called me to tell me the Cupcake Girls did nothing for her when she had asked for help when she saw them giving make overs to strippers in the strip clubs.  She was furious at them for being a "sham".

I had also talked to her about other documents we could get to get DMV to give her an ID if she still couldn't get her birth certificate.  After raving at me for two hours about how pissed she was that all Cupcake Girls did was raise money but not help her - she told me she wasn't ready to leave sex work yet.  Okay fine.  I referred her to SWOP, Desiree Alliance and Red Umbrella and wished her luck.

So why she was calling me at 1:00 a.m. because Metro and the security at Cosmo jacked her up on a Friday night pissed me off.  I told her to call the sex workers' rights groups about hookers problems, and to let me sleep.  I then rolled over to go back to sleep.

To which she responded if I was going to be "cranky" about being woke up "maybe you should hire a professional service like Cupcake Girls' has".   To get a service that would answer our type of calls is a commitment of a year and would cost me $500 a month to get a live operator trained in our calls just for the night shift.

Okay it can't work both ways.  I can't be on the phone, or doing outreach, or taking a newcomer for an HIV test or a job interview or to go to the food bank AND take care of my kid with a brain tumor AND go out fund raising day and night.  Not possible in the real world.

Then this afternoon I had a woman respond to a post I'd made about the polygamist show helping the kids to escape abuse.  She talked about how there needed to be a way to let those kids know about a hotline like ours - but to do that takes a whole new website, social media, etc.  Which costs money.  Every time I set up a new website it costs me $50.00.

This other woman was telling me how "your sites can't be found because they're free sites".  Okay well who is going to pay for them every month?  Everyone in the group comes to meetings, and then tells me they're broke.   I have one member who literally comes to every phone meeting for two years now straight - but hasn't donated one penny.   This person thanks me every week for having a program "not available anywhere else" that is credited for helping him to reduce his anxiety enough to where he's now volunteering at his local church weekly working with other teens coming off the streets.

In the meantime, I over drew my bank account paying for the cell phone bill to keep the hotline on.  I let it go off for two hours.  Then I thought I just couldn't take the risk.  So I went ahead and trusted God's going to fend for us here .  Sure enough - an hour later I got a crisis call from an 18 year old girl who was fighting the urge to relapse.  She said I helped her.   But she's not working and don't think I should ask someone who just thought about hooking for money for a donation.

I need a break here.  I'm tired of hearing how people are giving all this money to fakes, con artists, and shams - and I'm getting bumpkiss.  I'm not lying to anyone.  I'm being honest and truthful and frankly I'm beginning to wonder because it seems the  con artists are cleaning up.  It's beginning to make me wonder a bit here.

People tell me it's because the other shams have a "better looking website".  Well I made a free on at Webs.  To pay for one costs money.  Money if I get it - goes into gasoline to drive newcomers to job interviews, to send free Recovery Guides to jails  or those who are in the hospital getting HIV treatments.  If I get money I make sure a newcomer has food to hold her three days until the 1st, or she gets a uniform to start a new job, or pays for her drug test so she can take a job.  I just don't see sending money on a fancy website when we have so many better ways to spend our money on our members.  Get a grant?  Takes time to apply that I'm spending working with newcomers. Set up a fund raiser?  Takes time I'm spending setting up a jail meeting in San Diego.  Now unless you guys can do what I'm doing - then someone has to help with the bills around here.

Which amount to a total of $500 a month.  That's it.  But my monthly check is $770.00.  My rent is $900.  You do the math.  I don't have it.   If not for my daughter's check - I'd not make rent.   So my total income monthly is $1440.  You try taking care of two women, two dogs, a cat and a 12 step program on $1440 a month and then come up with another $500 a month for internet, cell phone, 800 number, mail box, postage, printing, etc.

I've got many victims I'm speaking out for who can't speak out for themselves.  Okay well that means I have a cell phone bill which no I can't use a free government phone because it doens't record phone calls.  It also has only 200 minutes which I use in a day.  I had three people tell me they were buying a Recovery Guide - and I'm not seeking it.

I'm beginning to feel like the town pump - where I'm being used by every guy in town but no one wants to take me to dinner.  Well it's time to take me to dinner. If I don't come up with $45 by Monday my bank is going to charge me another $35 a day until I do.   I did it to keep our hotline on.  Why did I run short?  My printer broke and a tire wore out on our outreach car.   So there went $100.

I can't do it all.  I work a job - I don't have time to do this work.  If I go out fund raising - I don't have the time to do this job.  I'm not superwoman.  Trying to be almost killed me with a stroke in 2000.

You want me to do this work then help us pay the very real operating bills.  I don't ask for a salary - just keep the phone on.  Please donate at paypal at tapsresearchdirector@gmail.com


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