In just 64.5 hours, the village came together and made their collective voices heard in support of Joel Laurier. I'm pretty sure no one (including me) thought that we would reach our stated goal so quickly, if at all. When setting up the campaign, there were many decisions to be made, one of the first was to set a financial goal. What a nightmare trying to pick a number out of thin air! Part of me thought that based on all of the love shown to Joel as Facebook comments, there would be others who would like to send money to him as well. I guessed that it might be possible in 35 days, to MAYBE find 100 people who might send an average of ¥10,000 yen each.

Well, was I ever wrong...

At this point 94 of us have contributed online and another 5 have made alternative plans to send money by bank transfer or snail mail. I'm guessing that there have also been dozens of people who have tried but failed to send a donation by credit card. Due to increased online fraud, everyone now has to have an enhanced security measure called "3D Secure" enabled on credit cards. It is quite simple to turn on but frustratingly difficult to find in English or in Japanese on the credit card's website. The solution to this problem has been PayPal. Everyone says that it is very easy to make a transaction that way.

While we are thrilled that we reached our initial goal, I hope that those who still want to contribute will consider making a donation right up until the Valentine's Day deadline. This year, 2022, is going to be a very long year for Joel to get back to normal healthwise, and equally challenging to secure a new job from April 2023. Believe me, every one of your donations matters!

Finally, I want to thank a number of you who have sent me private messages of thanks for starting the campaign. Besides my initial fears of stepping outside of my comfort zone, the whole thing was pretty much a no-brainer. Joel is one of the good guys - hardworking, generous, kind, and genuine. I absolutely love what we all did together. It has been a breath of fresh air in these tumultuous times of COVID-19. Let's not forget to show appreciation to one of the real heroes of this story - the donor who has agreed to make a life-changing gift to herself and to Joel. The mother of Patty will forever be a part of Joel's story from March 17th onwards...

To all of the donors present and future, take a moment to feel good about the start to 2022. We did a good thing.

Steven