Folks, the Hope Chest has just received an email from the owner of another blogsite that has criticized us in the past.
We feel we have a legal and protective obligation to post our response to the questions asked so that they aren’t misrepresented in subsequent posts that may appear on that site.
In the past, we’ve seen charges that have no basis in fact be posted to the Internet. When we’ve answered those charges the people concerned have refused to take down their posts or have ignored our answers. We want our response made publicly known.
Others see the original charges later and we find ourselves repeatedly having to answer them. So we also feel it advisable to post our response in this instance so that we can later direct people to it.
You needn’t read it if you don’t wish to. It’s in the nature of a “legal notice” and a pro forma posting, not an article of general interest.
XXX,
Let me answer the questions you ask about the Hope Chest.
“I have had multiple people come to me and say that the fund didn’t help them as they needed food, electric bills paid, Heat, hot water, etc. This fund would not help them.”
There’s a difference between being unwilling to help and being unable to help. Yes, we’ve had to turn people away, but in almost all cases it was because the Hope Chest has no funds. The few other cases, I’ll discuss below.
As you note, the Hope Chest did have a fundraiser, half of which was destined for general lightworkers and half for the teams.
We sent out the monies that were raised for lightworkers to lightworkers. No costs such as overhead were deducted from the funds raised. Nothing went to the volunteer staff who administer the Hope Chest. One-hundred percent of the funds raised went to the recipients that donors intended it to go to.
Now that the fundraiser is over and the funds have been disbursed, we no longer have nearly as much money to send out. At the same time one unforeseen result of the fundraiser is that the number of requests for money has increased dramatically. So you can see that we are now in a position of having to say “no” to numbers of people. Just because we were able to say “yes” during the fundraiser does not mean we’re able to say “yes” after.
I understand that to you it looks as if we’re somehow discriminating against people but we cannot send money to people if we don’t have any money.
We’re not a large charity, XXX. We’re a very small charity compared to most. For a brief period of time, we had a certain amount of money which we did disburse to the lightworker community.
For many years members of the teams have paid for all overhead costs for the Golden Age of Gaia site and for the Hope Chest. One member of the team paid $8,000 in site costs from his own pocket. I myself have sent hundreds of dollars from my pension to other members of the team to help with their rents and put food on the table.
Two other members of the Hope Chest have contributed much greater sums for the same purpose. And that is how we’ve survived until our debts and expenses became so high that, for our survival, we needed to stage the part of the fundraiser that went to the teams.
XXX, you said later in your letter that we should write books to pay for the team. I have written two books and they’ve raised a modest amount of money. Apart from these two books for sale, everything on the site – thousands of original articles, perhaps 10 or so ebooks, the blog itself and all InLight Radio shows – are available to lightworkers without charge. I have other websites which also have many books posted to them that I’ve written. All are free to anyone who wants to read them.
We are hardly somehow taking lightworkers for a ride, as you say later in your letter. If anything we’ve existed on modest amounts for years now and will continue to do so to serve the lightworker community. The way you represent us simply does not reflect the truth of the situation.
In regards to the two books that are sold from the site, anyone who cannot afford them can write the site and say so and a free copy is sent to them.
When the shift did not come as predicted on Dec. 21, 2012, our teams were left in a great deal of difficulty. We did not expect to be here after 21/12/12 and many team members had stretched their means to reach that date. It’s hard to find work around Christmastime so we were in great difficulty. Our readers and listeners graciously helped us get through that time and team members are now either looking for work or have taken whatever work they can find to help them survive until Pre-NESARA funds arrive.
“What makes you discriminate against one person versus the other?”
We don’t consider it discrimination to say that we have no money when we have no money. It’s a simple statement of fact. At this moment, for instance, we have very little money in the Hope Chest and many requests. One cannot send money from a more or less empty account.
As our readers contribute, we send money to whomever we can.
There have been some cases where we deny a request because the requester has repeatedly asked us for help and we’ve already helped them several times in the past.
There have been other cases where people have submitted multiple requests using different names, but Paypal shows us that the different requests submitted under different names go to one Paypal account. That is fraud, XXX, intentional misrepresentation and would be seen as such by a court of law.
When we point this out to the recipients, we’ve found that some of them loudly complain about us on other grounds. They go to other people and say we’ve been unfair to them. But they don’t reveal that they misrepresented themselves to the Hope Chest and were discovered.
We do have a duty to follow the intent of the donations, and that intent is to help lightworkers in short-term, dire financial need, not to fund people on an ongoing basis or who submit requests under multiple false names.
“Last I saw you guys raised over $50,000, now you have taken down your money meter, why?”
The money meter was only a device used to communicate to readers how we were doing with the fundraising campaign. It was never meant to be an ongoing feature of the site.
The actual money meter we used turned out to be labor intensive, XXX. When we disbursed money, the money meter would go down and so it required someone to keep it updated if it was to accurately reflect the total, rather than confuse readers by going up and down, up and down.
The Hope Chest itself is a very small group – five people, most of whom have many other duties as well (InLight Radio, the blog, the discussion group). No one has the time to attend to such a labor-intensive device.
“Do you have enough for NESARA?”
I’m not sure I understand your question, XXX. NESARA, or whatever it will be called, is a global abundance program, and it has not arrived yet. We’d have heard about it if it had. We are not the source of NESARA. So I’m not sure what you mean by “do you have enough for NESARA?”
“By the way, NESARA will not happen due to the fact that it won’t be accepted into Congress as a bill to be passed.”
NESARA has already passed the American Congress. Some say President Clinton signed it into law; others say it hasn’t been signed into law yet. It isn’t accurate to say it won’t pass Congress when it already has.
We’ve offered ourselves to be used as a channel for Pre-NESARA funds to lightworkers. Other organizations that we are in touch with have also offered themselves as outlets for funds when they arrive. All of us are awaiting the arrival of funds and will dispense them to lightworkers when they arrive.
“They won’t even consider it and yet you have people giving you money to support it?”
We’ve never asked anyone to give us money to support NESARA (which goes to the general populace) or Pre-NESARA (which goes to lightworkers). To say that we ask people to give us money for NESARA is a misconception, XXX. It has no basis in truth.
We expected the NESARA funds to arrive over a year ago and we’ve been holding on as a team to be available to serve if and when the funds arrive. We have no idea when that will be.
I wonder if you realize that the team has remained out of full employment in order to remain as a cohesive unit to serve lightworkers when Pre-NESARA funds arrive and they have done so since Sept. 2011. I think that reflects real commitment to service. All of them could have been enjoying the good life in a job and have foregone that to serve.
“Also, you have people giving you money to support your WRITERS? Um, have them write a book and get money honestly, instead of swindling people for copied articles from other sources and getting paid for it to boot.”
I can assure you that our team members are taking steps to raise money for themselves. I have recently written two books whose proceeds are going to the team. I’m not making anything personally from the sale of these books. All that comes from it is going to support others. How is any of this exploitative or discriminatory?
My books don’t earn a great deal, unfortunately, only enough to pay some expenses for one or two people.
“You are nothing but despicable and I abhor those who take advantage of others for their own gain. All of you are users and barely write anything of your own, how can you even call this a website? Perhaps you should give ALL of that money to those who are in need and perhaps if you guys get side jobs or write a book, then perhaps you should get paid, but not for posting articles mostly that belong to other people. Your writers do not add much to an article they post, just saying that you have a lot of sheeple following you and you are reveling in that as you can swindle them silly. Good luck to you Steve, you are going down a worse path than I thought. And good luck to your readers for following you, I hope they wake up soon!”
The charges you make against us here, XXX, are simply not accurate. I’m hard-pressed to see how any of what I describe above is taking advantage of anyone. How is remaining poor to serve lightworkers exploitative? How is running a charity in which 100% of the funds destined for lightworkers go to them taking advantage of someone? How is offering almost all of our products and services for free a swindle?
Many blogs that are following the shift repost articles written by others. I post an article a day from my own pen or else a researched article a day so your allegation that we don’t post original material is again not accurate.
I think we give good value to lightworkers and have only heard complaints from you and one or two others. Most people say that we’ve assisted them to survive when their families and friends haven’t understood them. They also say that we’ve assisted them to understand matters like Disclosure, NESARA, Ascension, etc.
I have no desire that people “follow” me nor do any of the others on the team. I say repeatedly that I’m not a spiritual teacher and not qualified to be one. I don’t misrepresent myself. I’m not sure where your allegations are coming from but they’re simply not accurate.
Thanks for sharing. I do hope you see the inaccuracy of your charges, XXX.
Namaste,
Steve