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Operation: Get Our Trooper a New Ride
The Mission
If you've walked a con floor or been to an event remotely Star Wars themed in OKC any time in the last decade and a half, you've felt James's work even if you didn't know his face under the bucket. Blast-a-Trooper. The Star Wars parade. The JediOKC Art Auction. The Kah’Maloo experience where we build a whole Star Wars marketplace so kids can light up in a galaxy of their own. James has been there for all of it either by suiting up, building sets, hauling gear, or helping everyone around him not die of dehydration. through it all he's been tirelessly raising money for children's charities, year after year after year.
He's one of the good ones. The kind of guy who puts on the armor of the bad guys specifically so he can go do good. Fifteen-plus years of showing up for everyone else.
The Force, lately, has not been showing up for him.
The Dark Times (a partial list, because honestly it's a lot)
The last few years hit James like a Star Destroyer dropping out of hyperspace at the end of Rogue One:
- Injured at work → shoulder surgery
- Back to work → re-injured → another surgery
- Unemployed after the workers' comp ordeal
- Got into an accident in his trusty Kia Soul
- While the Soul was sitting (at the dealership)... someone stole it
The Soul was eventually recovered, but it's done. RIP Soul. So right now James, a man who has spent 15 years getting us and a whole lot of kids where we needed to go is stranded with no vehicle of any kind. I'd say he has to walk everywhere now "Like a Bantha" but that quote only sort of works here.
That's where the squad comes in.
The Plan
We found a way out of the asteroid field. The brother of one of James's close college friends has a used crossover BMW SUV — a genuinely solid ride worth ~$8,000–$10,000 and he's willing to let it go for $5-6,000 to help James out. That's a hand reaching out of the dark, and we'd be fools not to grab it.
So here's the goal: $7,500. Here's where it goes:
- 6,000 — the SUV itself
- The rest - tires, taxes, title transfer fees, insurance, everything he needs to be mobile again.
- if we exceed the goal, that money will be used for full coverage insurance & gas to help make sure that James is set up to have zero financial burden while he resets his life!
That's it. That's the whole ask. Get James a reliable, legal, drivable vehicle and put him back in the pilot's seat of his own life.
Close Ranks
James never hesitated to help any of us suit up for a kid who needed a hero, for a charity that needed a win, for a parade that needed one more trooper. Now the ask is for the the helper to get some help.
Drop a few credits if you can. Share this with every Jedi, Sith, scoundrel, and Mandalorian you know. No amount is too small, a squad is just a lot of individuals deciding to show up.
May the Force (and a working transmission) be with him.
Organizer
