Wow, guys. You don't know how much my wife and I appreciate this. It touches our hearts immensely that you would consider this.
I've never really been one to speak very eloquently, and I sincerely hope not to offend anyone by saying this, so I'll try my best not to.
My wife and I consider ourselves quite blessed that our situation is much better than others in the area. Our situation aside, our hearts are broken and grieving for others in our area.
As I've mentioned before, even less than a mile down the street from us, there are families that have lost everything to the floods, not to mention the downtown area where there were several people who lost their lives. We have it so much better than them, that I wouldn't feel right accepting these donations for my personal use.
I'd like to ask your permission to donate any money that is received through this gofundme campaign to floodscwithlove.com. It's run by our church, NewSpring. It's a "multi-site" church, where there's one main campus in Anderson, SC with many other "satellite" locations spread out around SC, including 2 campuses here in the Columbia area. They're in a unique position as a church, since they are literally spread out over the entire state of SC, with an average weekly attendance of around 30k people! They are making extraordinary efforts in the affected areas of the community toward cleanup and restoration.
Again, it's not my intention to offend anyone and their generosity. We SINCERELY appreciate your thoughtfulness. We would just really like this to go to families that are truly in need.
