Please help demodonkey, a DUer in URGENT need.
I am posting this with Skinner's permission (thank you, Skinner!) to ask you all to help a long-time DUer get back on her feet after the tragic loss of her mother and family breadwinner.
Demodonkey has been on DU for many years. She was one of Andy's Angels who helped Andy Stephenson when he had his operation. She is a fierce fighter for better elections who was one of Regional Coodinators on the ground in Ohio for the 2004 Recount. Coming home to Pennsylvania, she founded the very active voting rights and election integrity group VotePA.us and has been working for better voting systems and a lot of other improvements in Pennsylvania's elections ever since. I am one of her organization's members, and I can vouch that there is truly NO OTHER PERSON doing as much for fair and accurate elections in Pennsylvania as demodonkey. I know demodonkey is single-handedly responsible or mostly responsible for getting numerous counties in PA to switch to paper ballots from unverifiable touch screens. Despite all that she has on her plate, she is still helping us work on the rest of the Pennsylvania counties that still use paperless vote-eater machines. She skillfully leads our fight for paper ballots and fair elections in PA, fighting the powers that be for change to the better. But unfortunately up to now our group has not been able to raise enough money to pay demodonkey even a small salary for the great work she does.
What many people do not know is that through all this demodonkey has also been an unpaid full time family caregiver. She gave up a career in the 1990s to help her mother take care of her autistic brother. He passed several years ago, but in the meantime her mother was physically disabled by a severe stroke. Demodonkey has taken care of her mother, who was wheelchair dependent, at home pretty much 24/7 for the last three years or so. She and her mother were very close, an amazing team really, and best friends as well as mother and daughter. Despite the stroke her mom cared deeply about elections as much as demodonkey, and travelled with demodonkey whenever possible in a loaned wheelchair van.
Last summer tragedy struck when demodonkey's mother died after an accident at home. Demodonkey was present when the accident happened but was unable to prevent it. It must have been horrible.
Demodonkey and her mom maintained their home on her mother's small retired teacher's pension and social security. So now, in addition to having lost her mother and best friend, she has no income at all. She received a little money from her mother's small life insurance, and has lived on that since her mother's passing, but she has only enough left to get through this month and then she will have nothing. In the meantime she is dangerously low on heating oil, her car needs major repairs (in the meantime she is still driving the loaned van that eats gas and IT has needed expensive repairs too), and she needs some repairs on her house as well to keep it safe.
In the meantime demodonkey is sending out resumes galore to get other work (she would be a GREAT find for someone), but having been a full time caregiver and unpaid activist for so many years is apparently working against her. She has not gotten even one interview. She has nothing left that she can cash in, sell quickly, or borrow from. She has no children, husband, ex, or close family to help her. This is it. She really needs someone to step in now and give her some support to get through the next few months. She desperately needs at least a few thousand dollars to help her get through this winter safely and to hang on until our organization can pay her or until she finds something that can.
I am writing to ask everyone on DU who is able, to PLEASE kick in whatever you can and help demodonkey get back on her feet. There are several things you can do:
** To send a gift donation directly to demodonkey via PayPal, use her email account sunnykay1 AT comcast DOT net.
** If you want to send something by snail mail or help by other means, please send me a private message and I will let you know how to do this.
** If you want to send something to VotePA in memory of demodonkey's mother or otherwise (all these donations will go toward our organization paying demodonkey for her work) please go to http://www.VotePA.us/donate
I know times are tough for so many people, but demodonkey is a really special case. She has done so much for so many for so long and despite her tragic loss this past year she tells us that she wants to hang on so she can do more. I know every dollar that people invest in helping her will get paid forward many times over.
Please help demodonkey.
MaggieTheVoter in Pennsylvania
= new reply since forum marked as read
I will see what I can do.
for you and demodonkey!
But she runs all over the state working for paper ballots 
sunnykay1!
I'm so sorry you lost your mother, ma'am. If I ever get the chance to help, I most certainly would. 
I can't imagine myself after my mother's death, period. One of my friends was widowed suddenly and she managed to make ends meet that way for a while as she figured out how to surf that big sudden change.
I am so sorry for her and I honor her efforts on behalf of all of us.
*kick* for demodonkey
If many of us send even a little it will be a big help! 
Have had some problems of my own this week so I haven't been able to check in.
I'm going to try to call DemoD as soon as I can and see how she is. I know the last time we talked she was having problems singing on. Something because of DU2 and DU3 and her browser? As I remember her computer is an older one. When we talked I made her promise that she would absolutely call me if she had real bad trouble.
Anyway thank you all for helping.
I think of her often and still worry about how she is holding up and managing.