Founders Blog #13 - Twenty, Twenty, Twenty four Hours to goooo / I want to be ... elated?

Holy Chevre,

Behind the scenes of a fundraising campaign is … pretty much straight shoe leather. It’s putting together a spreadsheet / database and cutting and pasting email addresses and emailing and calling and texting. It’s planning gatherings and nudging ambassadors and thanking donors.

It’s an incredible feeling. It’s super-stressful. It’s totally exhausting. It’s incredibly exhilarating. I want to sleep and explode at the same time. Both/and. All of the above.

One day you bring in a whopping big amount, and the next is a little slow. One day I’m thinking ‘WOOHOO MAYBE WE’LL GET THE DELUXE SUPERB ESPRESSO MAKER’. The day after, and my brain starts to panic, thinking of all the cuts I’ll need to make to the budget in order to stay balanced in our first fiscal year. It is, to put it mildly, a wild ride.

But this is a dream that Frances and I have - to create a new community for Pittsburgh. A new model of community that has never existed before. We want to make Greenfield a better neighborhood for everyone that lives there - including us. We want to have learning and friendship and music and community and Torah together in a new and different way. Frances and I are bustin’ our butts to pull all the pieces together.

Donate to Shoresh

We are truly in awe of the outpouring of generosity up till now. I Can. Not. Describe. The feeling of having this idea in your head, and telling people about it. And then, over a period of months, slowly but surely, hundreds of people decide to hand us their hard-earning money and effectively say to us ‘I believe in that dream too. Go make it happen.’

We set a goal, and we’re really close to that goal. We have 24 hours to go (the blog title is a Ramones song, in case you didn’t catch that) left in our first ever kickoff campaign. As of this exact moment, we have raised $87,2721, which is amazing. WE’RE SO CLOSE. And we did it all grassroots style: with $18 and $50 and $180 donations. Which is even MORE incredible. This is not a billionaire plaything vanity project. This is pure Pittsburgh - hard work, grit, and determination. A collective effort. The community spirit. The Yinzer way.

So if you gave, thank you. Maybe you have one or two friends you can text or email to say ‘hey my friend Mark/Frances has this amazing project. You mind throwing in a few bucks to help out?’ And maybe it slipped your mind till now to donate. If so, no better time than the present to push us over the top.

Ok but actually donate to Shoresh

Lastly, if you’re in Pittsburgh and can join us from 5-7pm tomorrow night at Shoresh, 4300 Murray Ave, for brownies and snacks and little tiny shots of coffee, we’re gonna vote on our favorite local blends and hang out and celebrate all that we’ve achieved. We did the work. Let’s have a party.

Once again, we could not be more humbled and grateful. You helped us get here - now we’re going to make the best Jewish learning community / coffee shop you’ve ever seen.