IE Member / Notre Dame student seeking help with service project

[Jason Pham]

Hey folks,

IE member and soon to be Notre Dame alum, kmader, is spending two years in service with an organization called the Farm of the Child. FOTC is a family-style Catholic orphanage, located in Honduras, that provides education, health care, spiritual formation, and community outreach programs. Kmader needs to raise $10,000 toward travel, language classes, medical expenses, and other preparation costs. You can find out more about kmader and find a link to help him out at Kevin Mader – Farm of the Child. (Also, it's tax-deductible.) I'm posting this in his stead so everyone knows it's a legitimate thing, but I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions anyone has. If nothing else, I think a few thoughts or prayers can't cost anyone too much.

Jason

 

[phork]

Lets go boys, filler up!

 

[HereComeTheIrish]

Prayers are cheaper... Good luck, Kid. Do God's work.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Jason and Kevin, I will come through for Kevin as soon as I can get one ridiculous curveball worked out. I have no phone here in this Wheeling apartment while I'm here caring for Mom. AND phone number is a required field. I've e-mailed Andrea at FOTC and asked if a simple mailing to their address will do AND still be dedicated to Kevin's fund specifically.

I'm an old man who ain't rich but I've got nothing better to spend my money on, so there will be a $1000 headed your way soon, Kevin. God Bless You, and you make Notre Dame proud. OMM

 

[MNIrish14]

This is the exactly why I love the University of Notre Dame. Complete strangers are willing to come together as a family to serve a greater purpose. This institution is truly special and brings out the best in people. I'm a poor student as well so I cannot offer any money, but you will be in my prayers. Good luck.

 

[Grahambo]

Jason and Kevin, I will come through for Kevin as soon as I can get one ridiculous curveball worked out. I have no phone here in this Wheeling apartment while I'm here caring for Mom. AND phone number is a required field. I've e-mailed Andrea at FOTC and asked if a simple mailing to their address will do AND still be dedicated to Kevin's fund specifically.

I'm an old man who ain't rich but I've got nothing better to spend my money on, so there will be a $1000 headed your way soon, Kevin. God Bless You, and you make Notre Dame proud. OMM

While you're at it...

Kev, no matter what, keep on going, don't let anybody stop you! Do work Kid!

 

[kmader]

Dear Sirs,
I'd like to thank you for your kind outpouring of support! This means a ton to me in allowing me to go do this service project. If you have any questions about it or in general would like to discuss anything about it, I'd be delighted to do so. I can't guarantee immediate response times (I'm in finals week right now), but I should be able to get back to you shortly.

OMM, with respect to your issue, one option you have is that you can donate by mail by making a check payable to "Farm of the Child" with "Kevin Mader" in the memo line of the check and sending it to:
Farm of the Child
Nottingham Knoll Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32225
That'll tag it as dedicated to my fund specifically. Does that answer the question you posed to Andrea?

Again thanks very much for your prayers and your generosity! It's people like you who make projects like mine possible!

P.S. Also, shout-out to Jason for so generously agreeing to post this.

 

[Redbar]

Dear Sirs,
I'd like to thank you for your kind outpouring of support! This means a ton to me in allowing me to go do this service project. If you have any questions about it or in general would like to discuss anything about it, I'd be delighted to do so. I can't guarantee immediate response times (I'm in finals week right now), but I should be able to get back to you shortly.

OMM, with respect to your issue, one option you have is that you can donate by mail by making a check payable to "Farm of the Child" with "Kevin Mader" in the memo line of the check and sending it to:
Farm of the Child
Nottingham Knoll Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32225
That'll tag it as dedicated to my fund specifically. Does that answer the question you posed to Andrea?

Again thanks very much for your prayers and your generosity! It's people like you who make projects like mine possible!

P.S. Also, shout-out to Jason for so generously agreeing to post this.

I'm in. Buena Suerte and Godspeed.

 

[Old Man Mike]

Kevin, Andrea responded with a similar solution. The check's written and if I can fight the cold rain we have out here in Wheeling today [The Devil's up to no good, but he will lose this one], it will be headed to Florida this afternoon. The Notre Dame family and the Church in general are the Grass-Roots where all the really wonderful God-work goes on. Enjoy being a Hand-of-God in these works. I wish that I was young again to participate in something like this. You're closer to the Light than I was at your age. Bless you.

 

[kmader]

OMM, I'm glad that sounds like it'll work out. You've been a great blessing to me. If for some reason you weren't able to get it in the mail yesterday, no rush, I'm not leaving until late July or early August.
Redbar, please know that my thank you extends to you as well! Your generosity is greatly appreciated!

If anyone else reads this, I'd encourage you to think about whether you can make a contribution yourself, be it either through prayers or financially. If you decide to mail something in, please be sure to earmark it with a "Kevin Mader" somewhere so they know who it's for.

Thanks again!

Oh, P.S. My apologies about taking so long to respond! We're in the midst of finals week here at ND!

 

[phork]

If Mgoblog can raise $54K for their preview magazine we can hit $10K easy.

 

[BeauBenken]

Being without a job at the moment, I can't help financially, but I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

 

[justinpham]

Having had the opportunity to meet kmader (and work with him on a group project) at ND, I know he's going to do some really great stuff after graduation. Sending you all my prayers!

 

[phork]

Any updates?

 

[kmader]

Thanks for asking, sir!
I was torn about posting again so soon, because I didn't want to seem like I was artificially bumping this thread up to promote the fundraising, but since you asked, Andrea at the Farm of the Child tells me that over the weekend they received OMM's $1000 donation to the cause! As of now, then, I have $1500 out of the $10k raised ($500 of which came from a family member), and I think I know where I'll be getting another $1000-$1500. I also intend to put what I earn from working this summer ($2-3k?) towards it, so I suppose I'm about $4-5k out from the goal. I'm preparing to send emails to the San Antonio Alumni Club (where I'm from) and the Boston Alumni Club (with whom I did a summer service thing) as well as some professors, but I certainly would appreciate any additional help from y'all!

Just fyi, if anybody besides OMM from IE thinks Andrea should have a donation from you, please let me know either by posting here or via PM, so we can check on that.

Thanks again!

 

[Rambler09]

Hi Kevin,

It's wonderful to hear that you'll be going to the Finca next year! I know 5 or 6 people who have spent time there, many of whom did the two year program you're doing. I'm pretty sure that 2 of them are still there. They all absolutely love it. I'm not sure that I can donate right now, but I'm really excited for you. May God bless your time there.

 

[phork]

My donation will be coming shortly. Won't be $1000, but every bit helps.

Come on IE'ers lets get this kid to $10K so he can keep his summer job dough.

 

[TheTurningPoint]

I just tweeted it so it'll reach some more people my man! good Luck to you

 

[kmader]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to y'all... I was mostly waiting for an update on what had been mailed in so I could tell you where I'm at. Andrea just sent that to me today, and as of today, I'm up to $5,625, well on the way there. I'm getting ready to send out a bunch of letters within the next week to some college friends' parents and a few old professors.

Thank you for your kindness in helping me out and taking an interest in this. I also got at least one donation from someone related to IE... I'm not actually sure whether it was someone who read about me on TP's twitter (thanks for that tweet by the way, TP!) or one of y'all. I only have their real name.. so if you contributed anything, feel free to post it or pm me so I know who it was.

Thanks again!

 

[Old Man Mike]

Kevin, if things get tight on you, and others have not supported you enough, give me a shout-out and I'll see what else I can do.

What you're doing is on such a higher spiritual calling than almost anything that I or most of us expend our "fat" money upon, it just isn't on the same page of the Great Book of Life in the Sky. God bless you and may the Spirit be with you through the whole experience.

I bought a camera the other day. I didn't have one, and it was a nice one.


I didn't need it.

 

[kmader]

Well, sirs, I must thank you again for your kind generosity!
Today's the day that I'm actually shipping out to language school!
I just thought I'd drop you a link to my blog:
Life at the Finca
As well, if you're interested in receiving email updates from me, pm me an email address sometime today and I'll put you on the list.
Unfortunately I'll likely be unable to watch most of the ND games for the next few years (I'm coming back in December of 2014, so I'll miss 3 seasons!), but I'll be trying to keep up with them after the fact, and I'll be thinking of y'all while they're happening, even if I won't be able to stop by here very often. If we can get and hold a top CB recruit or two sometime soon, hopefully we'll make things interesting. Also, for the record I vote for Golson =P

Thanks again y'all! It's been fun!

 

[Old Man Mike]

God Bless You, young man. Whether the rest of the IE board agrees, I say that what you are doing is worth thousands of sittings and watching Notre Dame football.

May the Road rise up to meet you, and may your days be filled with Our Lady's Grace. You make me proud.

 

[jimmymac]

God bless

 

[kmader]

Hey guys! I'm back with an update from Honduras!
Although I haven't actually been around to see it all, I'm delighted to hear that ND is 12-0. Because about seven of us down at the farm have some sort of connection to ND, we petitioned the director to allow us to leave past 7 pm on Saturday to watch them take on USC. Luckily it was being shown on basic cable down here in Central America!

I can't recall whether I've ever given this to y'all before, but here's the address of my blog Life at the Finca, which hasn't been updated all that recently, but is occasionally updated. Life down here doesn't involve that many trips to the internet, and when it does, they often aren't very long.

In general, though, things are going well. Life down here is sometimes hard, and the silly things that have to change can be stressing at times, but I'm certainly very glad I'm down here. I'll also be very glad for the end of the rainy season. I don't think I've ever been so continuously wet for so long, nor had nearly as many things mold in so short a time period.

I would talk more about my time down here, but I'm gotta run back to the Finca to run vecino futbol (not football, unfortunately) for our neighborhood soccer players.

Thanks so much for your support, and I hope you're all doing well!

GO IRISH!