I Need A Miracle
Donation protected
The Short and Sweet:
I have two mail-order, general admission pit tickets to the July 3 Dead show. I am trading them for donations, in the hopes that a Head can see the Show and I can be a stay at home mom/foster mom for a year.
Scroll down to The Rules section to see how this all is going to work.
Our Story:
This is a story of miracles. Many, many miracles. Miracles that walk the Earth and the Miracles to come: My daughters and the hope for a dance.
At Shows, I used to envy women dancing with their children. I wanted to dance like that, with my child on my hip. But I wasn’t yet a mom, and Jerry’s death, and the end of tour, shattered that dream.
Or so I thought.
In 2010, I became a foster to adopt mom, and a looong time later my daughter’s adoption was finalized. That, my friends, was a Miracle. Imagine: Me, a single woman, a mom!
And then a few years later, a second Miracle happened: Fare Thee Well was announced, and I about died a thousand deaths. My daughter and I could dance at a Show! My dream! Internet, I colored that envelope like a dog waiting for bacon to fall from the sky. And the confirmation email? It was almost too much. MY DAUGHTER AND I WERE GOING TO A SHOW! Seriously, Miracles, all of it.
And then? Then…
In April, yet another Miracle happened: My second daughter, another foster child, came home. Oh, we had been waiting for this sweet baby girl! YEARS we had waited. And waited. And waited. And when this child arrived? Oh heavens. That’s all I can say. She is, truly, a Miracle.
This darling child has needs. Like any child, she needs her mom and sister and play dates and friends and security and warmth and bottles and diapers and and and…. And she also has needs unique to foster children (co-parenting with the state is serious business, for real). You see, in the coming year, I will prepare my daughter, Baby Girl and myself for one of two outcomes: Either Baby Girl will join us as a card-carrying member of our forever family, or she will return to her birth family. The foster to adopt, or foster to return home, process will involve appointments with caseworkers, lawyers, therapists, family court, doctors, and specialists, amongst others. Moreover, Baby Girl needs to attach and bond, she needs to learn to trust, love and rely on us, and especially me. I can only do this if we are physically together. Baby Girl needs her foster mom to be there for her, to be her advocate, her mama and her mama bear.
I can do all of this working full-time, I can. Really, I can. But the truth is that I cannot do it as well as if I were a stay at home mom. So much of my day is taken up with work (I’m a middle school science teacher in Chicago Public Schools), that I don’t have the time to be the best mom that I could be, and that is killing me. It is so, so wrong! My kids deserve the world’s greatest mom, and here is me, mediocre at best. Unacceptable.
And that brings me back to my dream. Dancing at a Show with my daughters is still my dream, but, well… I look at Baby Girl and I know that sometimes you have to trade one dream for another; Sometimes even dreams must be prioritized. Yes, I want to dance at a Show with my daughters, but I NEED to be there for my children. They are the light, joy and love of my life, and they deserve all of me. My Baby Girl and my daughter have such great need of me that, honestly, nothing else comes even remotely close to being as important. So, I am asking for your help, and offering my other dream - my beloved, beautiful tickets - in return.
Please spare a buck or two. My hope is that a Head can go to the Show, that an average, extraordinary (even the average Head is the most extraordinary human) Head will dance for us, and I will spend the next 12 months being the best mom/foster mom that I can be.
Rules, Shmules:
1. There are two general admission pit tickets to the July 3 Grateful Dead show at Soldier Field.
2. Donors will get one chance to receive my tickets for each dollar donated to my project.
3. This project will close and no longer accept donations at 4:00PM on July 3.
4. If donations, minus project/site fees, equal $68,000, I will give away my tickets to one person who donated. I am trading my tickets for the opportunity to be a stay at home mom for a year, and this amount will replace my salary for the next school year as a teacher in CPS.
5. If the donations come close to $68,000, I’ll decide whether to give away the tickets or refund donations.
6. If this project is a colossal failure, I will close the project and take my daughters to the Show. I’ll give everyone a refund who requests it (I’ll email or put a notice on the project, or both). You’ll have until August 3 to respond that you want a refund. I will only issue refunds through the site directly to the person who donated.
7. I may add more rules, if I later realize I've forgotten some.
Thinking Positively (or How to Know If You Got a Miracle):
- The recipient will be chosen at 4:01ishPM (sorry, life is an inexact science) on July 3. When you donate, I will send you a thank you email (because I truly appreciate you!) asking for your phone number. The recipient MUST reply with a cell phone or home phone number in order to receive the tickets. No working number, no tickets.
- I will call you at 4:02ishPM on July 3. If you don’t pick up, I’ll text once that I’m going to call again in 3 minutes. I’ll call again in 3 minutes. If you don’t pick up again, you snoozed, you loozed, I’m moving on and picking another name out of the hat.
- I will tell the lucky recipient the pickup location, and probably a secret word or phrase. (A secret phrase will make it way more fun, amIrite?) A good waiting location will be Buckingham Fountain, because there is good cell reception there, and if it is hot, you can stand in the spray (one of my daughters’ and my favorite activities). I promise you will get back to the lot in time to buy a veggie burrito and a t-shirt.
- The tickets will be HANDED to the recipient by me or my friend (I am a bit shy). The recipient MUST have an ID and proof that they are the same person that donated (so make sure to print a receipt for your donation). THE RECIPIENT MUST BE IN CHICAGO ON THE DAY OF THE FIRST SHOW. I want a Head to go to the Show. My feeling is that if you are a Head, you will be in Chicago 3 hours before the Show starts, even if you don’t have a ticket, you know?
- You will have 15 minutes to travel to pick up the tickets. If you do not arrive in 15 minutes, I’ll call you to ask you what the heck is going on. If you do not arrive in 30 minutes, and do not communicate with me (pick up when I call), then you snoozed, you loozed, I’m moving on. Time is of the essence here, Heads. The Show starts at 7PM.
The Ugly:
- If, on or before 11:59PM on June 18, the Show is cancelled by the Dead, the City of Chicago, or the Giant Spaghetti Monster, then I will refund everyone’s money that requests it.
- If the Show is cancelled on or after June 19 at 12:00AM midnight for whatever reason, then refunds will only be given if I cancel this project or if the project does not allow me to be a stay at home mom for a year.
Any extra money above and beyond $68,000 will go to other expenses. I might even take my fam camping and rockhounding if I’m feeling flush and irresponsible.
The ultimate Miracle would be if this project goes viral and I could afford to foster to adopt more children, OMG. That would be the best. (Actually, it is more of a car thing – my foster license allows more kids, but my car is a fuel efficient hatchback that does not particularly appreciate the girth of a car seat.) That would be a huge dream come true, you know? For my kids to have siblings (plural). It might happen, once my littlest, newest girl settles in, because, well, you never know. Anything is possible.
Miracles. They happen. Believe!
Thank you!
I have two mail-order, general admission pit tickets to the July 3 Dead show. I am trading them for donations, in the hopes that a Head can see the Show and I can be a stay at home mom/foster mom for a year.
Scroll down to The Rules section to see how this all is going to work.
Our Story:
This is a story of miracles. Many, many miracles. Miracles that walk the Earth and the Miracles to come: My daughters and the hope for a dance.
At Shows, I used to envy women dancing with their children. I wanted to dance like that, with my child on my hip. But I wasn’t yet a mom, and Jerry’s death, and the end of tour, shattered that dream.
Or so I thought.
In 2010, I became a foster to adopt mom, and a looong time later my daughter’s adoption was finalized. That, my friends, was a Miracle. Imagine: Me, a single woman, a mom!
And then a few years later, a second Miracle happened: Fare Thee Well was announced, and I about died a thousand deaths. My daughter and I could dance at a Show! My dream! Internet, I colored that envelope like a dog waiting for bacon to fall from the sky. And the confirmation email? It was almost too much. MY DAUGHTER AND I WERE GOING TO A SHOW! Seriously, Miracles, all of it.
And then? Then…
In April, yet another Miracle happened: My second daughter, another foster child, came home. Oh, we had been waiting for this sweet baby girl! YEARS we had waited. And waited. And waited. And when this child arrived? Oh heavens. That’s all I can say. She is, truly, a Miracle.
This darling child has needs. Like any child, she needs her mom and sister and play dates and friends and security and warmth and bottles and diapers and and and…. And she also has needs unique to foster children (co-parenting with the state is serious business, for real). You see, in the coming year, I will prepare my daughter, Baby Girl and myself for one of two outcomes: Either Baby Girl will join us as a card-carrying member of our forever family, or she will return to her birth family. The foster to adopt, or foster to return home, process will involve appointments with caseworkers, lawyers, therapists, family court, doctors, and specialists, amongst others. Moreover, Baby Girl needs to attach and bond, she needs to learn to trust, love and rely on us, and especially me. I can only do this if we are physically together. Baby Girl needs her foster mom to be there for her, to be her advocate, her mama and her mama bear.
I can do all of this working full-time, I can. Really, I can. But the truth is that I cannot do it as well as if I were a stay at home mom. So much of my day is taken up with work (I’m a middle school science teacher in Chicago Public Schools), that I don’t have the time to be the best mom that I could be, and that is killing me. It is so, so wrong! My kids deserve the world’s greatest mom, and here is me, mediocre at best. Unacceptable.
And that brings me back to my dream. Dancing at a Show with my daughters is still my dream, but, well… I look at Baby Girl and I know that sometimes you have to trade one dream for another; Sometimes even dreams must be prioritized. Yes, I want to dance at a Show with my daughters, but I NEED to be there for my children. They are the light, joy and love of my life, and they deserve all of me. My Baby Girl and my daughter have such great need of me that, honestly, nothing else comes even remotely close to being as important. So, I am asking for your help, and offering my other dream - my beloved, beautiful tickets - in return.
Please spare a buck or two. My hope is that a Head can go to the Show, that an average, extraordinary (even the average Head is the most extraordinary human) Head will dance for us, and I will spend the next 12 months being the best mom/foster mom that I can be.
Rules, Shmules:
1. There are two general admission pit tickets to the July 3 Grateful Dead show at Soldier Field.
2. Donors will get one chance to receive my tickets for each dollar donated to my project.
3. This project will close and no longer accept donations at 4:00PM on July 3.
4. If donations, minus project/site fees, equal $68,000, I will give away my tickets to one person who donated. I am trading my tickets for the opportunity to be a stay at home mom for a year, and this amount will replace my salary for the next school year as a teacher in CPS.
5. If the donations come close to $68,000, I’ll decide whether to give away the tickets or refund donations.
6. If this project is a colossal failure, I will close the project and take my daughters to the Show. I’ll give everyone a refund who requests it (I’ll email or put a notice on the project, or both). You’ll have until August 3 to respond that you want a refund. I will only issue refunds through the site directly to the person who donated.
7. I may add more rules, if I later realize I've forgotten some.
Thinking Positively (or How to Know If You Got a Miracle):
- The recipient will be chosen at 4:01ishPM (sorry, life is an inexact science) on July 3. When you donate, I will send you a thank you email (because I truly appreciate you!) asking for your phone number. The recipient MUST reply with a cell phone or home phone number in order to receive the tickets. No working number, no tickets.
- I will call you at 4:02ishPM on July 3. If you don’t pick up, I’ll text once that I’m going to call again in 3 minutes. I’ll call again in 3 minutes. If you don’t pick up again, you snoozed, you loozed, I’m moving on and picking another name out of the hat.
- I will tell the lucky recipient the pickup location, and probably a secret word or phrase. (A secret phrase will make it way more fun, amIrite?) A good waiting location will be Buckingham Fountain, because there is good cell reception there, and if it is hot, you can stand in the spray (one of my daughters’ and my favorite activities). I promise you will get back to the lot in time to buy a veggie burrito and a t-shirt.
- The tickets will be HANDED to the recipient by me or my friend (I am a bit shy). The recipient MUST have an ID and proof that they are the same person that donated (so make sure to print a receipt for your donation). THE RECIPIENT MUST BE IN CHICAGO ON THE DAY OF THE FIRST SHOW. I want a Head to go to the Show. My feeling is that if you are a Head, you will be in Chicago 3 hours before the Show starts, even if you don’t have a ticket, you know?
- You will have 15 minutes to travel to pick up the tickets. If you do not arrive in 15 minutes, I’ll call you to ask you what the heck is going on. If you do not arrive in 30 minutes, and do not communicate with me (pick up when I call), then you snoozed, you loozed, I’m moving on. Time is of the essence here, Heads. The Show starts at 7PM.
The Ugly:
- If, on or before 11:59PM on June 18, the Show is cancelled by the Dead, the City of Chicago, or the Giant Spaghetti Monster, then I will refund everyone’s money that requests it.
- If the Show is cancelled on or after June 19 at 12:00AM midnight for whatever reason, then refunds will only be given if I cancel this project or if the project does not allow me to be a stay at home mom for a year.
Any extra money above and beyond $68,000 will go to other expenses. I might even take my fam camping and rockhounding if I’m feeling flush and irresponsible.
The ultimate Miracle would be if this project goes viral and I could afford to foster to adopt more children, OMG. That would be the best. (Actually, it is more of a car thing – my foster license allows more kids, but my car is a fuel efficient hatchback that does not particularly appreciate the girth of a car seat.) That would be a huge dream come true, you know? For my kids to have siblings (plural). It might happen, once my littlest, newest girl settles in, because, well, you never know. Anything is possible.
Miracles. They happen. Believe!
Thank you!
Organizer
Shannon Sankstone
Organizer
Chicago, IL
