update
Good news I have sent some more letters to companies and hoping to get some more laptops. I have also been interveiwed by the L.A. Times and Patterson dental newsletters and I hope this generates more laptops.
Good news I have sent some more letters to companies and hoping to get some more laptops. I have also been interveiwed by the L.A. Times and Patterson dental newsletters and I hope this generates more laptops.
January 7, 2008 at 7:07 am
Congratulations! You are an inspiration! Best wishes and good luck in your endeavors….
January 7, 2008 at 7:26 am
Front page of the latimes.com! Sounds like a great idea and a great charity. Keep up the good work! Maybe that guy who sells laptops to Africa would let you buy some of his cheap computers for your cause.
January 7, 2008 at 7:39 am
Try contacting Apple. Once upon a time when the first started out they had the grand idea of donating one computer to every school in the nation (about 30 years ago now). It didn’t work out…
But they have accommodated many programs along the way. Try shooting an email to Steve Jobs – sjobs@apple.com.
Good luck!
January 7, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Hi Michael I read about you in the Times today and am impressed! You give young people a good name.
I am in need of some information/help from you. I am part of a giving circle, HHUG (Hearts and Hands United in Giving), and we are hoping to become a 501(3)c. The task seems formidable; I did not know there was an internet site available for help. Could you direct us to it? Thank you so much. And keep up the great work!!!
January 7, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Hi Michael,
I have just read LA Times and the report that followed your interview and I just want to say I am most impressed. I am a teacher of English in Austria and I find it grand that you have gone through so much to help others find a way in their lives.
Congratulations
Keep on going I wish you all the luck in the world for your future life.
All the best
Claudia
January 8, 2008 at 2:18 am
Hi Michael-
Congrats on the LATimes piece, I just finished reading it and am now checking out your blog. While I don’t suffer from dysgraphia, my mother insisted that I learn to type when I was in the seventh grade and that was one of the best things that could happen to me.
That was a while back, before computers, and I took a self taught class using the family’s portable manual typewriter and a workbook and a record. Then I took typing in 8th grade. After I graduated high school in 1965 I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and they trained me to be a radioman. One of the things they teach you at Radio School is how to type, only at the time you were also taught the Morse Code (which the navy referred to as “CW”, which stands for continuous wave). That was interesting.
I ended up at a major naval communication station during the Vietnam war, where teletype machines were a big part of the job. After leaving the navy I got a job using teletype machines in a bank. I have been with the bank ever since, and have been typing, in various different jobs at the bank all along. Now my job involves understanding and leveraging business technology, which is all about computers, and it all started from listening to typing lessons on a phonograph record more than 50 years ago.
So not only did you do a smart thing by learning to type in order to deal with the dysgraphia, but you have acquired skills with typing, and understanding computers, that will serve you well your entire life. I think it is terrific that you have now founded “SPLAT” and are working to help other people with dysgraphia, especially those who may be less advantaged. I am sure you are going to learn an awful lot through your work with this, and you are going to be rewarded in a very special way, knowing that you are lending a hand to others.
You might want to consider establishing a PayPal account for your non-profit corporation, and then displaying a PayPal donation link on your blog.
I will return here periodically to see how you are doing. I’ll also pass the word along about SPLAT.
You are building some great karma.