Posted on 06/26/2016 9:31:05 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda
GoFundMe campaign intended to raise $250 for a lawnmower for Memphis teen, instead raises nearly $200G
A GoFundMe page set up so that a Memphis teen could kickstart a lawn mowing business has exploded, raising nearly $200,000 for his impoverished family.
The “Chauncy’s Chance” crowdfunding campaign was set up by a benevolent stranger, Matt White, and initially set out to raise $250 for a lawnmower for 16-year-old Chauncy Black.
Now the teen has his sights set on buying a home for his mother and funding his education after donations started pouring in.
Matt White was inspired to help out Black after meeting the teen while he panhandled in a Kroger grocery store parking lot.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
The Taxes are going to kill them
Yeah but you missed this part. No matter how much we love them they are still animals.
I wouldn’t have taken her if we didn’t have the extra money to spend on her.
Exactly my thoughts. He will now spend the rest of his life looking for someone to “help” him out. Anyone who doesn’t “help” him will now be called a racist. The fund should have stopped at $500. Enough to buy the lawn mower and some gas to get him started. Let him show that the money went for what it was intended.
This kid is about to find out that the money he just got is really the governments. I’m sure the “good people” at the IRS will be paying him a visit.
Many young people are counting on “Go Fund Me” as a life insurance policy to pay for their funerals.
I told that kid the other day to go fund himself and look what happened.
50 years ago I kickstarted my lawnmowing business with an old derelict mower I had to learn how to fix. It sputtered and smoked until I could save enough money to buy a better one, then a rider and then I was rolling. I was never enough of an enterprenuer though to hire others to work for me but I did OK.
It is nice they helped this kid but all he learned is how to get a handout just like he was doing when they found him panhandling.
Insensitive? I pay enough friggin’ taxes already. If that isn’t enough to help people they won’t help themselves. Screw ‘em. If they haven’t got the guts and gumption to change for themselves, screw ‘em. If the kid had been out mowing and fixing and struggling I might have given him a hand up but he did none of that. He had a noble idea and his palms up begging for money.
He had every chance before as well.
All he did is manage to touch the taxpayer for more handouts.
This is a great feel good story, but I’d like it better if there was a cap on donations, say $1,000, maximum. This way the kid truly learns a lesson in life, and gets a chance to start a modest business. Before I was 16, I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, shoveled driveways, and babysat, to earn money. If I hit the jackpot, like this kid, I doubt I would have done any of those things, that taught me how to be employable, for the last five decades.
Sure, add in donations for food, clothing, things of that nature, but I can see this kid becoming ruined by this bonanza, either by being deincentivized, or worse, preyed upon by those who would make a quick buck off of him.
Thank you.
So sorry to hear of your loss. I cannot imagine what Mrs. higgmeister and I will do when our grizzled old boxer has to leave us.
Gift taxes, when applicable, are on the donor, not the donee.
What will that teach him?
That Panhandling and Begging instead of working WORKS!!
here in Los Angeles the Beggars make anywhere from $150-$300 DAILY!
As my wife said, he learned that it is more lucrative to beg than to work hard to earn your pay.
A generation or two ago, if any person got a P.O. Box, put an add in a magazine to solicit money to buy a lawn mower and received $200,000.00, they would put him in jail for mail fraud.
he didn’t panhandle, he asked to do something to earn the donuts. This is a kid who despite horrible circumstances is getting Straight A’s in school and has his head on straight.
It is fraud. Money was for a lawn business.
After bait and switch, money is now for a free house. If the original asked for a free house, the outcome would be different.
Liberalism is ask for nice things but do different.
The kid and mother should be in jail for fraud.
There was no fraud, the web page was updated continually, showing how much they’d raised and saying that they were now going for other things such as clothing, education, house, etc.
You can criticize people for choosing to contribute, but anyone who clicked the donate button on their web page did it with ample knowledge of the state of the campaign and the new goals etc.
He offered to provide a service in exchange; that is not panhandling.
Standing on a corner begging for money for nothing is panhandling.
of course I should have said there is no “obvious” fraud of the kind being suggested — I have read through the 18 live updates on the web page and they seem to have been quite transparent about upping the fundraising goal each time and giving indications of what else would be done for Chauncey and his mother.
That does not mean that the whole thing could not turn out to be some kind of scam, though I sure hope not. No way to know over the internet that the people involved are “real” as described and that the events transpired as described. But reading through the original appeal and all the updates, it does have some rings of truth to me.... for one thing, the “sponsor” of the whole thing just sounds credible to me, even if somewhat wild in his enthusiasms.
I hope it does not all turn out to be some kind of scam, there are too many of those in the world.
Thank you. We are heartbroken. Vet sold us this super duper new flea collar and one week later our happy, healthy, 5 year old baby’s back legs quit working, diarrhea, and then seizures. Vet said she thought it was a brain tumor but they’ll never convince me she wasn’t poisoned by the Seresto flea collar.
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