Update on this good cause!

Apparently, we did good already–in fact, seven times as good (VBG). Here’s the content of an email I received yesterday as a donor to Spirit of America:

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Normally, you won’t receive a message from us more than once a week but this a rare week. (To remove yourself from this list please reply to this message and put “unlist” in the SUBJECT line of the message.)

Last night the Wall St. Journal’s Dan Henninger was on Nightly Business Report on PBS. He spoke about Spirit of America and the donor response generated in large measure by his recent column. It’s a great piece. Please read it below. The impact of Dan’s column was augmented mightily by the relatively unsung efforts of bloggers and by many of you forwarding messages to friends and families.

Here are the results. Overwhelming. Incredible. In the last five days we have received $764,408 from 4,088 donors. Most of these funds are earmarked for the request made by the Marines for equipment needed to establish Iraqi-owned television stations in Al Anbar Province Iraq (described here: http://www.spiritofamerica.net.....uest.html). Our initial goal for this request was $100,000. The Marines are as stunned as I am. I’ll remove the expletives of joyful surprise and forward some of their comments to you next week. They are also developing ideas for the expansion of this initiative. More on that soon.

We are pressing ahead with fundraising. We understand we’re at the very beginning of the effort needed to achieve peace and stability in Iraq. The Marines and others serving in Iraq have made clear that all the support we can muster will greatly assist their efforts to win the peace. Rest assured we do not confuse success in donor support with the real results we all seek to achieve. The real work lies ahead. But the funding makes the results possible and we now have a great foundation to build upon.

We are now focused on delivering the basic equipment requested for the first seven stations. Thanks to you we will have everything at Camp Pendleton by next Thursday (April 29). That delivery will make it 21 days from receiving the Marines request to fulfilling it. You can imagine what a response like this means to those on the front lines whose lives are at risk.

Two other items:

* A number of bloggers have kicked off the “Heroes of the Blogosphere Challenge” – a very innovative collective effort to raise funds to support the requests we receive. It is the brainchild of Dean Esmay. More information is here: http://soa.mysitehosting.net/c.....sults.html

* We are behind in answering many of your messages. We apologize. We’ll reply to everyone that has emailed us with questions and offers of assistance as soon as we can.

Again, thank you for your support.

All the best,

Jim Hake

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Commentary for Nightly Business Report – April 20, 2004

… Dan Henninger

I wrote a column recently for the Wall Street Journal about the war in Iraq. This is the war we see on television every night. The war that people on television argue about every night. By now everyone is either for this war – or hate and oppose it.

But maybe a middle ground IS possible.

My column wasn’t about the right or wrong. It was about a remarkable group called Spirit of America – started by a businessman in California named Jim Hake. Jim found out the American GI’s in Iraq had rebuilding projects for which the U.S. bureaucracy is ill-equipped to help them. Small stuff. Like supplies for schools and medical clinics.

The Spirit of America project I wrote about was an effort to raise money here to equip 7 small TV stations over there. Marines would rebuild the stations and turn them over to Iraqi cooperatives.

Now, I’m not here to ask for money but to try to make sense of what happened after the column. The response was huge. Given a chance to help the Marines in a nonmilitary way, thousands gave money. Why?

Partly I think it’s the weird media age we live in. The closer events like this war are brought to us every night, the more disconnected they seem from our daily lives. In World War Two we had a homefront. People helped in small ways. Today, we just sit home, staring helplessly at the soldiers on TV.

This little project – to build Iraqi TV stations – didn’t just open American wallets. It opened American hearts. It gave folks a chance to get off their hands and touch those American GI’s.

Support the war or oppose it. We’d be a better people if we had more chances like this to extend a helping hand to our men and women in Iraq.

I’m Dan Henninger.

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