Help Fred get back on his feet
Donation protected
The man in the video is Fred. He is a homeless man who has been cutting our grass for a few years. He always uses a borrowed mower, but recently he told me he has saved up $70 to get a mower of his own. I went on Facebook and made a couple of posts asking if anyone has a mower for sale and explained the situation. That's when things went a little crazy. People got excited about being able to help someone like this, who is trying to get out of this situation and become independent. So I got offers to donate mowers, weed wackers, leaf blowers, and money/gift cards for gas and oil. The video is when I told him all about this and gave him the donated items.
Initially, I just had people send money directly to me through Paypal and I passed all of it along to Fred. But now, more people are asking to donate and help Fred so that's the reason for this GoFundMe campaign. When I asked Fred how he would use any more money that's donated, he immediately said, "A place to live" so that's what this fund will go toward. Whatever is raised will go toward that living accommodations for him, and I would love to see enough to cover his rent and utilities for a year while he works and gets other areas of his life straightened out.
Thank you all for your awesome generosity. The number of people that want to help has just blown me away.
Update: July 10, 2016 - this story went live on BayNews 9 today:
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2016/7/10/community_helps_safe.html
Organizer and beneficiary
Scott Johnson
Organizer
Safety Harbor, FL
Fred Smith
Beneficiary