Texas Strong Fundraiser for Hays County Flood Relief

Update as of 6-15-15 at 12 pm:  We raised over $10,000 in just the first 24 hours of this fundraiser and over $100,000 in less than 6 days.  Our "viral" fundraiser for flood relief was featured on both People.com and Austin CBS affiliate, KEYE TV.

We have now raised over $131,000 (and counting) for Texas Hill Country flood victims!  What a beautiful tribute to my mom. Thank you, Texas!!!!

Teespring has added a "100% Verified Donation" badge to each of our Texas Strong campaigns, as they will be sending all profits directly to United Way of Hays County Disaster Recovery Fund.

We have also added phone cases for iPhone and Galaxy and embroidered hats to our Teespring campaigns!

I launched a t-shirt campaign on Teespring this weekend with 100% of profits supporting Hays County flood relief. And, naturally, being a social media maven, I shared it in a few groups and this blog’s page on Facebook, as well as on Instagram and Pinterest.

It was a white tank and fitted tee with a very simple Texas design. My goal was to sell 50 shirts, which would have raised a few hundred dollars for disaster relief in San Marcos, where my mom spent the final years of her life battling Alzheimer’s, Wimberley and surrounding areas.

But people got excited, they liked the shirt, and they asked for more color and style options, so I delivered. (Yes, there is a men’s version.)

And every time I hit refresh on my web browser, we had sold more shirts.

Hays County Flood Relief

Within 10 hours, we had raised over $3,000 for United Way of Hays County’s Disaster Recovery Fund for victims of the Memorial Day 2015 floods in Hays and Caldwell Counties.

If you are concerned about how the funds we're raising will be used, please read this statement from United Way of Hays County CEO Michelle Harper:

"The money will go DIRECTLY to those in need. 100% is being donated to families to help with housing needs, both long and short term; basic needs like gift cards to help with food, clothing, supplies; and then long term recovery and rebuilding. United Way of Hays County is NOT taking any administration fee from ANY donation to the Flood Recovery Fund. If you donate to www.unitedwayhaysco.org/give or text FLOODS to 41444 every dollar will go to help your neighbors."

As I write this, we have sold over 400 shirts and just surpassed $4,200 in profits!

That’s in less than 12 hours, folks. Imagine what we can do in a week.

Texas Strong

I am just speechless.

So I will let my favorite author, John Steinbeck, spell out Texas Strong for y’all:

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.

God bless Texas!