If you want to help

[chetfarnsworth]

Hey FOT's, I just wanted to reach out from Newtown. I've lived here my entire life and I have never seen the community come together like they have this weekend, under very unfortunate circumstances.

I'm not pandering for donations, I just wanted to extend myself to other Friends of Tom. You guys are always very thoughtful and positive in times of need. There are a lot of different reports about what people can do to help. Feel free to message me privately or post here if you'd like any details about where to send condolences, donations, etc. Even just keeping us in your thoughts - the support is felt.

Thanks
-Chris

[cavorting with nudists]

My feeling is that if you were to post some of those details here it would by no means be seen as pandering.

[chetfarnsworth]

Just wanted to make sure. My intent wasn't to drag tragedy in here so I wanted to make sure it wasn't interpreted as such. One of our local banks has set up a support fund for funeral expenses and support of immediate families. Check donations can be sent here:
Sandy Hook School Support Fund

c/o Newtown Savings Bank

39 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470

I dont know about you guys but I haven't written a check in years. Here's the site for the support fund as well: https://newtown.uwwesternct.org

Thanks guys.
-Chris

[Greggulator]

Hey man! I don't this in any way would be considered pandering!

This has been a truly awful few months for a lot of people really close to where I live. But if there's one that we can all learn is that tragedies give us a chance to build better communities. The FOTs are already one of the best communities of people out there anywhere.

Will Be The Boy sent this one out on Twitter. A friend of his lost her nephew in the shooting. His family set up a fund to help with their needs -- mostly to provide counseling for his siblings, a few of which were in the school when this happened.

I hope this doesn't take away from the fund you posted Chet! Just throwing another opportunity out there for anyone who wants to give.

http://noahsarkofhopefund-eorg.eventbrite.com/

[chetfarnsworth]

Not at all - thank you so much for posting that. The FOT community has been my Tuesday night family and beyond. Knowing that kind of attitude, I figured I would open the door in case a few folks were intending to help.

The tragedy touches everyone in someway. I just found out last night while I was at one of the memorials that my friend's mother had been one of the teachers killed. It comes in waves. The media is trampling all over us but we'll be still be here after they get their story and leave.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Like I said, it comes in waves.

Back to the point at hand. Greg, I really appreciate the link you posted. There are more funds like this one popping up from the families or representatives of the families. The support fund I posted is merely the funnel for general aid. I'm still aggregating the funds via facebook groups.

Like I said, you guys are always the best. Even just posting this helps. Talking has proved helpful.

Thanks
-Chris

[not that clay]

You know what would actually do some good? Stop humoring the gun nut assholes in your life, get in their faces, and tell them to stop being assholes already. If everybody does that America can be a decent normal country like everywhere else.

[Greggulator]

Found out today that someone I went to college with in Philly lost his son. No one I knew all that well but still really awful.

Not sure how many of you know this but I've mostly been a journalist professionally. I started out at small weekly newspapers. I was always hoping for the "big story" to fall in my lap so I could make more than $20K a year and move out of my parents' house. I thought I had it when there was a murder in the town I covered -- an 18-year-old girl who came from Mexico literally that week gave birth to a newborn and freaked out. I went to where she was staying, which was this tiny trailer park. I'm still haunted since crime scenes don't come out in the wash. After that I decided to become a business reporter. It was horrifying.

One of my all-time favorite co-workers is an editor at one of the newspaper chains up that way. She doesn't cover Newtown but lives in Danbury and knows plenty of people in Newtown. It's completely wrecked her. Her workplace went from assigning people to go to school board meetings to trying in some way to handle what's going on. I was working in North Jersey during 9/11 and had to write obituaries for a few folks who died. It was seriously the worst. This is just as bad. Thankfully, the papers she oversses are in good hands because she's a great person, one of the best people I've ever worked with, and is in this line of work because she's compassionate about life and not because she's chasing better work.

Just know this about the media -- there are a multitude of jerks out there who are just in it to grab some sort of byline for one of our industry's dumb awards or will do heartless crap like interview people at a child's funeral. But there's also a lot of decent people in the industry who are in it to shed light on how horrible this is, what the options are for us to prevent this from happenning again and to let people outside know what they can do to help ease the pain of people affected by this.

[chetfarnsworth]

I know what you mean Greg. My girlfriend is actually a reporter for The Daily Voice in Danbury and it's her first real gig as a journalist, started early in 2012. This is also her first real story, aside from the weekly "what's happening in town" and "new dog park opens" sort of stories.

She's been on a roller-coaster recently, dealing with the job but also her emotions and her sense of self/professionalism. There are definitely some good people out there that are looking to report from the soul of the town, and not just what will be SEO-optimized.

Anyway, thanks again for letting me blab on about this stuff. Sorry to hear your classmate lost his son. The degrees of separation are sadly very small with a town like this.