As AN continues to collect donations for the Jon Wilhite Recovery Fund that Kurt & Renee Suzuki have set up, I plan to give periodic updates and this will be the first one.

Please note that we will accept donations for as long as they come in, but I am planning to send in the first main batch of donations in about a week -- so if you wish to participate but have not yet gotten around to doing so, please consider sending your donation in the next couple days.

Here is where we are so far, as of today's mail:

I have now received 23 donations totaling $870.00:

* 4 donations of $100.00
* 5 donations of $50.00
* 1 donation of $25.00
* 6 donations of $20.00
* 1 donation of $15.00
* 6 donations of $10.00

This total does not include:

* A $100.00 "matching pledge" by LibrariAN that we can now cash in on for getting 5 $20.00 donations.

* A $100.00 "matching pledge" by iglew if/when we hit a total of 10 $10.00 donations.

* Any checks already in the mail that have not yet arrived to Berkeley.

* Donations that have made through baseballgirl's PayPal account (those are not yet tabulated).

If you wish to participate and have not yet done so, you can either send a check payable to "Jon Wilhite Recovery Fund" to:

Jon Wilhite Recovery Fund c/o
1152 Euclid Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94708

Or you can donate through PayPal to baseballgirl's PayPal account (baseballgirl1976@hotmail.com), and baseballgirl has pledged to cover all PayPal charges as her donation.

Finally, some of the donations have come with notes, like one that arrived today that I thought I'd share: "I never met Nick but he was my sister's nephew. (She is married to the brother of Nick's mom, Janet.) I am praying for the souls of those who died and for a full recovery for Jon. This is not much money, but I want him to know that people near and far -- friends and strangers -- are pulling for him."

It's not about the money, it's about the participation -- participate and the money will be there. Thanks again to those who have donated and to those who will. It's for a good cause.

{UPDATE, Tuesday 4:25PM PDT} Please see my comment in the thread for an updated total that includes PayPal and today's mail.