Blood from a Stone

Your mission, Mr. Phelps, should you decide to accept it, it to go the heart of GM county – on a Thursday and Friday when the headlines are bleak and bleaker – and ask for donations for a Children's Hospital. Mr. Phelps? I think I have self-destructed a little early… Mr. Phelps, can you hear me?

Yeah, I hear you. That was pretty much the way it went this past week in Lansing, Michigan. Oh it was fulfilling and uplifting. I met some great kids and wonderful families as the video below illustrates. But at the end of the day the calls and the donations just weren't there. Hours went by without a single call. And it wasn't just us. There was a very popular morning show that also experienced a "Dead Zone." Trust me, it was not The Network. This market is stunned.

We began on Thursday with tons of energy and great support from the hospital and the foundation. The docs were there and the kids kept on coming accompanied by some of the strongest parents I have ever met. We pumped the phone number hundreds of times an hour and built a great story of hope and need and accomplishments and goals. We built it, but they did not come. By Friday night I was feeling the love from other participants, but as is human nature, I certainly thought it was my fault. Was I coming off too strong? Was I scaring good-hearted folks away with tales of sick kids and serious challenges? Or were the challenges of a potentially failing auto industry just settling in, and a reality too great for even the commitment of a few dollars a month? We'll never know.

Last year we raised nearly $70,000. If I'm to believe the centralized call center we'll be lucky if we raise a small fraction of that.

At the end of the three days all I have is the knowledge that we did our level best. When people are afraid for their jobs, staring at a dismal future and inextricably tied to a troubled industry, then any amount is too much to ask. All the other factors really don't matter, and the feeling that I let the kids down is pretty useless as well. But putting that out of my mind is a real impossible mission.

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