An angel comes to town

People see me coming and then hide from me. I am now turning into a giant bore for people who can assist in getting money or equipment for the charity. But does that stop me? Of course not, BD keeps on barrelling ahead with people despite them being totally so not interested.

It is not easy to get hold of equipment as I have alluded before, but I was at a corporate dinner and bumped into a friend who was previously the CTO of a very large universal bank. She gave birth to a lovely little baby and then has now rejoined the bank as their head of strategy and planning.

She was quite interested in the story and gave me the name of their hardware provider. This hardware provider takes care of the disposal of their assets. I met the lady concerned from their hardware provider and it became very clear that they have other commercial angles to this. She asked me if there was a chance of me getting them a contact at my bank, some sort of quid pro quo for her, so that if i get her some business then she can see if some equipment can be shaken loose. Needless to say, and I know pride is a bad thing in charity, I walked away. Not interested.

I thought that was the end of the story and gave it up as a learning experience. But to my surprise, my friend called me up out of the blue and said, I have 30 PC’s and laptops for you. I was near over the moon.

I think I have mentioned before how the recession is meaning that more and more children across the country are unable to afford PC’s and laptops, more and more children are falling ill. So Pat is constantly bombarded by requests for equipment and the pressure is going up and up. It is so tough to even talk to these students, teachers and hospitals. I dont know how Pat does it, really.

30 computers means that we will be able to help 30 students, 30 children who otherwise might not have been able to study, to work, to learn about Egypt or Greece, to understand algebra or check out the football scores online or create their websites or mash utilities. Makes me happy that few more bits of knowledge are being created in this world and few more smiles are going to come because an angel in the bank decided to help in getting these computers to the charity.

I know she does not want me to use her name, but all I can say again is, THANK YOU.