Yesterday, a Catholic-school-attending atheist teenager named Daniel was highlighted here. Daniel wanted to beat his school in a charity fundraiser, only he wanted to benefit a secular charity instead of the Church. According to Responsible Charity, within 48 hours of Daniel creating the Facebook fundraiser page, $4,925.27 has been donated from 497 people in 19 countries around the world.
This is incredible! The vision of this young teenager to create a worthwhile fundraiser out of a situation that hurt, saddened, and angered him is a testament to the power of knowledge. At that age, I hadn’t examined my faith enough to even stand for a belief, let alone create anything remotely thoughtful in the face of adversity.
As a little bit more background for those who have to kindly donated and to anyone still deciding, allow me to share a few beautiful pictures and quotes from Hemley Gonzalez, who began the organization:
It was during my sabbatical in India that I uncovered a scandal inside the charity founded by Mother Teresa (The Missionaries of Charity) involving serious medical negligence and financial fraud. I began to document and report all that I had witnessed on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/missionariesofcharity) and soon after Forbes-India contacted me for an interview.
The experience of volunteering within an organization marked by egregious fraud inspired me to create a better way to help people overcome poverty and lead a healthy and happy life. Thus Responsible Charity, Corp. was born: http://www.responsiblecharity.org/
Visit Hemley’s site for more info, photos, and his hilarious $#!+ Atheists Say video!
Thank you to everyone who donated, shared, and supported Daniel’s vision for Responsible Charity. It’s great to be a member of a community that so often seizes the opportunity to show what it’s made of.
*** Update*** From Responsible Charity:
Update regarding The Catholic School Atheist‘s fundraiser: As of this morning (Feb 27th India time) 448 folks from around the world (not the previously mentioned 497 as MANY supporters actually have doubled and tripled their donations in the last few days and we mistakenly repeated their headcount) have raised $8,664.61USD for Responsible Charity‘s project to build our first secular school for the children of the slums in Kolkata! We are now officially just a few thousands dollars shy of our $25,000USD goal. Thank you for the unbelievable support from everyone who has participated and continues to participate
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