They said it couldn’t be done. If you haven’t heard already, exactly a week and a day after we started the Georgia Billboard campaign we have 1010 donors and $21,721.20. Enough to launch a good campaign in Atlanta.

When I first mentioned this on the blog I got the following comment:

Bare minimum cost for a bilboard is about 3K. While it is a fine idea I seriously doubt it will come to anything and I wouldn’t recommend spending too much time working on it.

We already talked about how to ignore naysayers and making our Big Fat Impossible Dreams come true. Today I want to talk about something different.

I’ve been talking to reporters and one of the questions that they all asked is “Why now? Why this issue?” I was going through the comments that people left on the GoFundMe site and lots of people talked about the fact that kids are involved. I think that’s what was pivotal -they went after kids and we will fight for the kids. Allow me to suggest that we deserve to be fought for just as hard as we’re fighting for kids in Georgia. Every Body Deserves respect. Not just thin bodies, not just children’s bodies, all bodies deserve respect. YOUR body deserves respect

The fundraising was a massive victory (and not just because we raised 7 times more than my naysayer said was an impossible amount.) When we put up our billboard campaign, it will be another massive victory. All of the amazing I Stand posters are a massive victory. Getting a letter from the NIH denouncing the Strong4Life campaign was a massive victory. First let’s take some time to celebrate all of these victories.

There are more fights to come and many of those will be fighting for adults (including ourselves) and I want to use the opportunity to suggest that those fights are just as valid, and just as worth fighting. I saw several people on the GoFundMe site say some version of “They can shame and stigmatize us but stay away from the kids”. We don’t have to think that way. We can stand up and say “You absolutely cannot shame and stigmatize us or the kids, and we will fight you if you try!”

There are going to be a lot of fights like this and we’re going to gain and lose ground and some days it will feel like we’re nowhere and we never will be, but I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we fight all the fights, not just the ones that seem possible, but all the fights that need fighting, we will win.

Huge, massive thanks to everyone who was involved with the fundraising! We are now accepting design ideas from the community, for submission guidelines check out www.SupportAllKids.com.



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