Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Got my tennies laced up and my favorite tee shirt ready to go …

I signed up to walk a 5K to help raise funds for the Educational Initiative which provides modest scholarships to kids “aging out” of various human service systems — foster care, mental health, juvenile justice, etc.  The scholarships most often go to purchase a computer, but also can be used to buy tools for vo-tech training and things like that.

My 5K is part of the Great Race in late September.  We have a total of 7 teams running or walking.  Our goal is for each team to raise $800 to buy one laptop.  We'd like to be able to purchase the laptops and present them to the kids at the end of the race. 

The program has been wildly successful, helping over 26 youth in the first year.  The children don't have to be our clients, they can come from any agency in Allegheny or Westmoreland Counties.

Would you like to help?  A $5.00 or $10.00 donation will make a difference.  You can click here to make an online donation – just write my name and Laptops in the memo field.  Or you can send a check to:

                  Walking for Laptops  c/o Family Services of Western PA                       6401 Penn Avenue, 2nd Floor  Pittsburgh, PA 15206 attn:  Sue K.

I just thought I'd let you know what else I do with my time besides work, blog and hang out on Facebook.  🙂   My co-worker has this complete walking training schedule.  I sort of plan to show up and stroll the 3.whatever miles.  Seriously.  I might even bring my travel mug with delicious Hoi Polloi coffee. 

When I went to college, my parents bought me a state of the art word processor.  It was awesome and even had disks for storing documents.  I made a lot of money typing papers for other people during college.  I don't know how they knew about it or how they found the $$, but it was huge gift and I kept it for years, even after I purchased my first PC in 1994.  So I can appreciate how important a laptop can be for a college bound student.

And you have to remember that these are children coming from families that don't necessarily have the resources or resiliency to send them off with the proper equipment.  Here's a scary statistic 40% of youth aging out of foster care end up homeless.  That's horrifying.  And more than a few of those young men and women actually did get to college, but had nowhere to go during term breaks and over the summer.  Imagine! 

So, perhaps you can pledge the equivalent of a few frappucinos or mocha lattes and just drink plain coffee a few days?

Plus, I'm getting up at like 6 AM to walk.  For your community.  I've come to your shows and read your blogs and driven you home from shows and posted links to your editorials and all of that good stuff.  🙂

ps:  we are on facebook, too (you knew we would be).  Search for FSWP Foster Care.  There's a cause button that you can also use to donate. 

Walk on!