Helping Others in a Pinch

A Message from Abraham Bonowitz

For more than 30 years, I've been fighting the death penalty. As awful as the circumstances are around murder and its aftermath, one of the things I'm grateful for is the people I have found myself working with, many of whom have become actual friends.

But something that comes along with working within impacted communities is the reality that in many cases, poverty is a real and ongoing struggle. It is rare that a week goes by without someone I know in the anti-death penalty movement needing a quick bit of assistance. Many have big needs and I am still managing GoFundMe pages for a number of exonerated death row survivors and a few family members of murder victims (including family members of the executed). The trauma is real, and ongoing.

Often I get a call or a text like this: "Brother, I need help making my rent or I'm going to get kicked out," or, "I just need help filling my gas tank so I can visit [my loved one in prison]." Or recently, "I don't have money for food."

Maybe I'm a sucker, or maybe it's just the values my parents instilled in me. If someone needs help, you help them. All of these people I know are proud, and in most cases they have their own ways of earning a living, but when someone calls with a desperate need, if I can help, I do. And it adds up. I'm not rich. In fact, I have quite a bit of debt, but that doesn't stop me.

This is an experiment. My goal is to set aside funds donated here so that when someone I know needs a quick bit of support, I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops or check my own bank balance. I can simply transfer some funds and help alleviate the situation, $50 or $100 at a time. Most recently the need was $150.

There are those who will challenge this practice. I don't care. I want to be able to help people without having to go through my own or another organization's structure and process. This is my project - Abraham Bonowitz - and not Death Penalty Action or any other organization. If you don't want to trust me, that's fine. Donate instead on one of the following pages. But if you want to give me greater capacity to be a phone call away for people in a bind who are part of my circles, please chip in here.

OTHER PAGES I RUN TO HELP OTHERS