From Bookshelves to Solar Panels: Giving Back Together

My living room floor has been returned to me, and all my old books are gone to their new home – The Living Room Bookstore and Cafe. Thanks go to Madeline Milne for taking them off my hands and leaving me with barren shelves.

I won’t allow that to accumulate again. The books, I mean. I have a handful of books left that friends wrote, but the current lot I read every night, which either put me to sleep or rob me of it, will go back to the Living Room with me to trade.

Now, about my closet. Ugh. I do occasionally purge, bundling up a few things I no longer wear and dropping them at Deja New. Still, because I either remake or severely alter clothes I buy for practically no money at the tianguis, they are not ‘professionally’ sewn. They therefore aren’t up to clothing store standards. As anyone learning to sew knows, “they have to look as good on the inside as the outside when it’s finished.” My clothes aren’t like that, but they’re perfect for me, and I don’t care how they look on the inside. A dilemma, and how lucky am I if that’s my biggest problem in life?

Hurricane Priscilla, which bounced by our coast this week without leaving us a drop of rain but created some enormous wave action, also destroyed the solar panels that run Vallarta Cares (formerly the Vallarta Food Bank). This community-based charitable organization is among the most important of the dozens of worthy causes out there. Vallarta Cares deals with humans on the simplest, most basic elements of life – food, water, and love. What began during COVID as feeding a few people every day that had lost their jobs grew into providing packages for families in outlying areas containing basic foodstuffs.

As the world got back on its collective feet, Vallarta Cares expanded into disaster relief, providing potable water in minutes with a donated system to hurricane victims. Vallarta Cares fights forest fires, going far beyond just putting out the flames.

And getting back to basics, they are still feeding dozens daily.

And where does the money come from to first source the cheapest beans, then buy them? Cook them. Then dispense the beans that go with the rest of lunch.

You. You are it. The only source of Vallarta Cares’ income. They did the right thing by leaving the CFE grid and biting the bullet to buy solar panels, at least easing that burden on their tenuous supply of money. And now the solar panels are gone, and the good work of Vallarta Cares comes to a screeching halt.

My good friend Bri Bott told me about the solar panels this morning and has come up with a wonderful fundraising idea: ”Here’s my birthday wish:

If you were thinking of buying me a drink, you can do even better.

Donate that amount (or more!) to help re-energize Vallarta Cares

When you donate, please include “HBD Brian” in the comment box so I can track our collective give/get total and personally express my gratitude.

Let’s light up Vallarta again and show what community love can do.”

Click here to donate: https://vallartacares.org/

The ball, as they say, is in your court.