Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2008. Mattie was on our deck and playing with the garden hose. Another fun activity for Mattie..... water and getting wet. Mattie wasn't outside watering our plants! He was outside spraying water everywhere.... everywhere that ensured it would also land on him. Which is why he had his rain coat on. Mattie wanted to make it feel like it was raining. There were many Mattie antics that took place on our deck.
Quote of the day: What? You're having a bad day? Think of those who didn't wake up this morning, and can no longer live this day. ~ Patty Medina
There is a lot of truth to tonight's quote. No matter how bad you think your day has been, it truly isn't that bad when you put it into context. The context of people who are ill or dying. That withstanding, today wasn't the best of days.
They always say things happen in threes. Well my first incident took place bright and early this morning when I got several panic emails and phone calls from a person I do not even know. This individual made a $5,000 donation on our Foundation Walk website, in support of a fundraising team member. Wonderful, no? Several of my Walk planning committee members text messaged me with excitement after seeing such a donation come in. But here's the catch.... the person made the donation but did not want to donate $5,000, but instead $500.
This individual was desperate to get a hold of me because he wanted his money back ASAP. He kept saying that he did not authorize us to have all this money. When I tried calling him back, I got connected to a foreign country recording. Which made me suspicious. However, within minutes he called me back and said he was visiting Peru (which explained the message in Spanish that I heard) and needed me to reimburse him this money today, because the credit card he used was the only one he brought on his travels. He then explained that our website wasn't clear, because apparently $5,000 looked like $500.
I naturally had to keep my cool, as ticking off any supporter isn't a good plan. Fortunately Peter figured out how to reimburse him and I knew how to cancel his transaction. So within thirty minutes his problem was resolved. But this is how I started my day, it felt like putting out a fire.
The second thing was we found out we were denied a grant we applied for! The rejection letter was hysterical, specifically because the grant making organization invited us to their fundraiser in October and suggested we help them raise revenue and volunteer at their event, to enable them to give out even more grants in 2019! Literally that whole paragraph in the rejection letter made me laugh out loud. Mainly because I am trying to raise money for my non-profit and I am turning to them for help with funding a new initiative we would like to provide. Asking me to help them raise money seems counter intuitive.
The last and final issue had to do with one of our Walk vendors, which I am not going into detail about here. Needless to say, it was one thing after the other today, and moments like these it would be very easy to say... I have had enough and walk away. Yet here I am still plugging away tonight. May tomorrow be a better day.
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