Promoting Science When the Government Can't Helping out our furloughed friends, one kit at a time. Favorited Favorite 1

Update: At long last, the shutdown ended in the wee hours of today, Thursday, October 17! This means any furlough emails received after 12:00 a.m. today will no longer be eligible for the giveaway. We're as relieved as you are that things can hopefully go back to normal, and we hope you enjoy your kit!

We could tell you how ticked we are at the US government. We could try to express how nervous we are that the SBA loan for our new building may be in jeopardy. We could go on about how we are a small business that is being hurt by the kinks in exporting our products to the world because customs is getting swamped. We could take the time to tell you how we are not affected by Obamacare (we think it's a fine thing). However, we are not one of the 800,000 people currently furloughed. Our problems don't compare to those 800,000 people.

My brother-in-law is one of the unlucky folks who works for the USDA and is on unpaid leave for an undetermined amount of time. To take the edge off, I wanted to send him one of our kits - something fun he could do with his kids. Why not open the freebie up to anyone who is short on work and long on time?

This kit now free, thanks to your US government (well, sorta).

We've decided to offer our furloughed friends a small gift for all their troubles - your choice of the RedBoard Starter Kit, the MaKey MaKey, or the ProtoSnap Lilypad E-Sewing Kit! It works like this - if you're one of the government employees stuck in a furlough, send us an email at furloughed@sparkfun.com with an image of your furlough letter, which kit you'd like us to send you, and your mailing address. Then we'll send you your free kit!

We're going to run this deal for two weeks or until the shutdown ends (whichever comes first). We hope this will at least give you something to do until the powers-that-be can get their respective acts together.

We're a small business trying to help out our family and friends. Now please write your representative and ask them to do the same.