The Clojure community has come through, in a big way.
At 1:26PM, I published the blog post announcing a small, informal fundraiser to help fund a "scholarship" for Anthony Simpson (a.k.a. Raynes), enabling him to attend the first Clojure Conj next month. Check out the post if you've not seen it already; it's got the backstory.
At 2:38PM, we reached our goal of $1,000 (actually, we overshot it slightly; PayPal doesn't allow you to cap donations as far as I could tell, so I had to time when I disabled the payment button). This will enable Anthony and an adult relative of his to travel to the Conj. I suspect he'll take full advantage of this opportunity. And, I'll bet there'll be pictures, too. :-)
That's 72 minutes to raise just over $1,000, donated by 29 different individuals (whose names are listed below), with an average donation of $37. My original post hit hacker news, so there may be a few non-Clojure programmers mixed in that total that were inspired by the cause – but I recognize most of the names. In any case, I'm floored.
I knew the Clojure community was phenomenal, but the reception to this effort has been more than even I expected. I figured we'd make the goal, but 72 minutes? Damn.
Please don't squander that impulse. This particular effort was worthy, but it's certainly not unique. There is no shortage of people who could use a helping hand in one form or another. Many of them are far away somewhere – and the internet can help in those cases as it has here – but surely there's somebody right outside your front door, or down the street a little ways that could benefit mightily from that small measure of extra human connection that only you (and maybe a few friends of yours) could provide.
If there's one thing that this episode has impressed upon me as no prior experience has before, it's that just a few people (even just one!) can make a difference. That may sound trite, and it might seem naïve, but I'm quite certain now that it's true.
To those who donated, thank you so very much:
Craig Andera Brenton Ashworth Justin Balthrop Lance Bradley Brian Carper Martin Clausen Anonymous Donor Chas Emerick Mark Engelberg Antoni Batchelli Estrada Tom Faulhaber Christina Gurga Aria Haghighi Nathan Hessler Hessler Richard Hickey Chris Jones Zachary Kim David Liebke Darwin Lo Mark McGranaghan Hans-Christian Meier William Morgan Chris Petrilli Robert Pitts Luke Renn Stuart Sierra Sandeep Srinivasa Levi Strope Matt Tessar