North on the Colorado Trail - Please Help

North, my friend, my Dark-Fish brother, I was deeply saddened to hear of your struggle, and I'm very glad that you've got such a strong support circle around you. I know you've received many words of support, love, and prayer and rather than add more words to the throng I'll just say - me too and more brother, me too and more. I'm looking forward to seeing you sometime soon at a Dark-Fish gathering and hearing of the milestones you've reached on your journey.


To North's support community: I'm hiking the Colorado Trail this summer and I intend to take North with me, at least in spirit and symbol. I've created a website hoping to generate some sponsorship support, please take a look: http://www.cotrailnorth.com

This website and my efforts to generate contributions are very much a work-in-progress and I need some help. My time is very limited right now, as I prepare to depart on the hike, along with moving out of my house, etc., so I can only devote limited time to this effort. Then, of course, when I'm on the hike I'll be completely unavailable to devote any time. I believe this website and my hike have the potential to generate some extra support for North so I'm asking folks to help me with it.

I need help with:
1) content to put on the website
2) fund-raising

Content:

- I'd like to include a bio box so that folks looking at the website get to know North a little bit. Now, I know North from only a few days spent with him at Pilgrim Pines and, although I love him like a brother, I don't know enough to write much of a bio. Will somebody please write up a brief bio and send it to me?

- I'd like to include some information about the cancer and the surgery. I've included a link to Dan's layman's description, and perhaps that's sufficient. If anybody can help me with suggested content here then that would be great.

- Any other ideas for content?

Fund-raising:

- I'd like to think that appeals to similarly interested groups might generate some support - e.g., other men's groups or outdoors groups. I'll probably try to contact some men's groups here in the Boston area and perhaps some outdoors groups here and in Colorado. However, I'm not sure if I'll have the time to do even that much, and that's going to be the limit of what I can do. Both in the time leading up to my hike, and during the time that I'm on the trail, if somebody would take it upon themselves to do the fund-raising that this kind of sponsorship opportunity provides then we might be able to generate some real help for North. Will somebody please take it upon themselves to take responsibility for contacting groups and individuals, explaining what I'm doing, and then asking for contributions and conveying contributions to North's bank account?

- I also need someone to respond to inquiries that may come from people who look at the website. There shouldn't really be much required here, except maybe to answer questions and to add people to the Snapfish list so they can get t-shirts or something, but I'm going to be totally unavailable so I need someone to whom I can forward emails so they can respond for me.

- Once I have the website ready for prime-time, within a week or two I hope, I'm going to contact my local town newspaper and try to get them interested in a human interest story. After I see how that goes, I'm thinking of contacting larger papers such as the Boston Globe and the Denver Post to see if they're also interested in a human interest story. At the very least, I'm going to have to be more knowledgable about North's story and the cancer in order to survive an interview with a reporter. Any other ideas or help here?

Will these efforts provide significant results? Don't know, but I think it's worth a try.

I will be in my house until mid-May. Then I'll be in-transit until the end of May during which time I'll be only occasionally available. Then in late May or early June I hit the trail and I'll be mostly unavailable until the end of August.

I intend to come off the trail and back to civilization twice during the hike in order to take a trip to Michigan and then a trip to the L.A. area. During those times I will probably be able to update the website with reports of my hike and add pictures taken on the hike, including pictures of me wearing the "North on the Colorado Trail" t-shirt. Assuming we can get some interest generated, these updates should help to maintain interest in the hike.

Please join me in gratitude to the generosity of artist Mary Dolman, http://www.dolman-art.ca/, who assented without hesitation to my request to use her beautiful image of Ursa Major on North's behalf.

Thanks everyone for your attention to my endeavors here, and even greater thanks for your loving support for North.

North, my prayers are with you.

Guy
978-456-7865 guymott@cotrailnorth.com