Why I'm Asking Now

Years ago, I purchased 40 acres of land in Needles, California.

I wasn't wealthy. Nobody bought it for me. Nobody even knew I was doing it at first.

I was working, earning my own money and making payments on that land because I had a vision for something bigger than myself. I wanted to create a legacy for my family — a place where future generations could know that, no matter what happened in life, there was somewhere they could call home.

And I was doing it. Payment by payment. Year by year.

I got to the point where I was less than approximately $15,000 away from paying it off. Then my employment situation changed. The company I worked for went through changes of its own, and eventually it could no longer afford to employ me at the compensation I had been earning.

Suddenly, the income supporting everything I had carefully built was gone.

I continued doing what I could for as long as I could. And when I realized I might lose the land, I did something that was difficult for me: I asked for help.

I went to my family. I explained what I had been building and why. I wasn't simply asking people to hand me money. I offered participating family members an opportunity connected to the land itself — space that could someday become part of a home and legacy for their children.

I even calculated what it would take if enough people participated. Some expressed interest. But the collective support I needed never materialized.

Eventually, I lost the land.

Around that period of my life, the loss of income affected other things too. I could no longer maintain obligations I had previously been able to handle. My vehicle went into repossession. My credit was damaged.

And suddenly, years of being responsible could be overshadowed by one period in which the income underneath everything disappeared.

That experience also taught me something about support.

I don't know why everyone didn't participate. Maybe they couldn't afford it. Maybe they had responsibilities I knew nothing about. Maybe they didn't understand the vision. Maybe they didn't believe in it. Maybe the right people simply hadn't heard about it.

Their reasons belong to them. The lesson belongs to me.

I learned that I cannot assume the people who know me personally will necessarily be the people who help me build what I see. Sometimes support may come from someone who has known you for 30 years. Sometimes it may come from someone who discovered you 30 minutes ago and immediately understood what you were trying to accomplish.

So I'm doing something differently now.

I'm giving people the opportunity to choose. I'm showing you what I've been working on. I'm showing you what I want to build. I'm showing you the problems I want to address. I'm showing you what has already been developed behind the scenes.

And I'm asking one very simple question: Do you wish to support me?

You don't have to finance an entire project. You don't have to rescue me. You don't have to put yourself into financial hardship. And I'm not promising to multiply your money, provide an investment return, or tell you that your support will magically change your circumstances.

I'm asking whether you see something here that you want to help continue.

If all you comfortably have is 77 cents, then 77 cents can say yes. If it's $1.11, that can say yes. If it's $7.77, that can say yes. If you are blessed enough to comfortably do more and genuinely wish to, you may.

Some things are bigger than one person.

Maybe there are millions of people just like me — people with ideas, skills, compassion and solutions who aren't waiting for somebody to save them, but who simply need enough resources and enough people pulling in the same direction to get something moving.

I intend to become increasingly self-sustaining so that losing a job, losing a contract, losing one income source, or having someone else change their mind can never again automatically stop everything I have spent years building.

I want my work to support me. And as my capacity grows, I intend for my work to create capacity for other people too.

That's why I'm asking now. Not because I believe anybody owes me anything.

If your answer is no, thank you sincerely for taking the time to learn what I'm doing.

If your answer is yes? Welcome.

Let's see what we can build with what we have.