These groups need fundraising rides of their own

It's for a good cause

Yesterday was the annual motorcycle ride for veterans in my town. According to the event website, about 2,200 motorcyclists pay twenty-six bucks a piece to participate in the ride, which consists of a twenty-five mile, police-escorted ride through a number of towns.

And since my greatest skill is getting stuck in traffic, of course I had to wait about twenty minutes while the ride proceeded along a US highway used by tens of thousands of cars in the middle of a Sunday. But while I waited, I began thinking about what other groups might benefit from a fundraising ride/parade/motorcade/jaunt/stroll/whatever word for locomotion you want to add. After all, if defense spending is 13.3% of the federal budget, and there’s still a need to hold fundraisers for veterans, then I’m sure groups that are less-well-funded could also use a hand.

So here, in no particular order, is a list of groups that may want to consider asking supporters to pay money for a police escort to get around town some Sunday afternoon.

Social workers – Social workers are notoriously underpaid in relation to the important work that that they do. It’s real hands-on, in the weeds, thankless work that comes with no glory other than helping to make a difference in people’s lives. These people spend every workday finding ways to help the most vulnerable people in our society, so of course they’re underfunded. Social programs are always among the first to be cut when we’re facing a budget crisis due to too many tax cuts. Supporters may want to ditch the motorcycles, and instead ride in a twenty-year-old Ford. Judging by the way social programs and social workers are funded, that’s what our leaders think that they should be driving.

Librarians – Let’s invent a job whose sole purpose is to make knowledge, art, and entertainment available for free to every member of the public, and then let’s cut their funding, and unleash the-sky-is-falling paranoids to challenge their decision to make a wide variety of books available. Luckily, librarians are a resourceful bunch and can make magic with budgetary leftovers. It’s probably fine to keep the motorcycles for this ride; I can imagine some librarians have quite an adventurous side. But maybe try and make the pipes a little less obnoxiously loud. Shhh.

Teachers and school administrators – If you want to be surprised, find the website that lists public employee salaries for your state, and look to see how much your child’s favorite teacher makes. I bet it’s less than you think. And less than they’re worth. (A teacher taught me which their/there/they’re to use in that last sentence!) A large number of politicians and voters would love nothing more than to do away with public education, and they’re trying to starve it to death. I mean, who needs a well-educated populace anyway? And I’ve learned in the past couple of years that we can’t count on voters to help the situation. Time to fundraise. But no ride for this one. You don’t need a vehicle to fundraise. Just make do with what you have.

Service and retail workers – I often think that we’d be a kinder society if everyone were required to work as a retail or service worker for a couple of years. It’s not easy. Customers aren’t always right. Most of the time they’re wrong. And just as often, they’re dreadful. Yet we expect some of the lowest paid, hardest working employees to put up with jerks and nonsense. The disparity between executive and retail worker pay continues its astronomical growth. So maybe we should have a ride for them. Although it would have to be on Christmas because they’re working every other day of the year. (And some are working Christmas, too!)

Moms – The extent of appreciation for moms in this country seems to have turned into, “Thank you for not being a childless cat lady.” Bring the kid into the world, but you’re on your own after that. Since there seems to be a sizable chunk of the population who want moms to do nothing but mom (after all, are moms even people?), the least we can do is to raise some funds for them. Although, let’s be honest, the only way that this event would ever happen would be if a mom planned it for herself.

I hope these ideas catch on. I think they’ll make a world of difference, and direct valuable resources to groups who could really use them.

Also, let’s not forget about another important group often found on public roadways: protestors. After all, who cares about a little traffic backup as long as it’s for a good cause, right?