He Did It All for Charity?
Am I the only one who finds this a bit self-indulgent?
A guy rowed across the Atlantic–successfully–to support cancer research. He hoped to raise $500,000. He’s raised $100,000. But:
He and his sister spent $60,000 of their own savings to have his boat custom built, and he took a leave of absence from his financial services job.
Seems to me if he’d donated the $60,000 plus a percentage of the salary lost during his leave of absence, he could have done as much good as he’s done so far without all the soreness, exposure, and freeze-dried food. But then he wouldn’t have a custom-built boat and the honor of being the third American to row the Atlantic.
Or maybe I’m just a grinch. I guess he could’ve just bought the boat.
Via Instapundit.
Also, maybe I didn’t emphasize this enough–he’s raised $100,000, or only 20 percent of his goal. Which makes him utterly unlike the Canadian mentioned by Janie in the comments, who ran across Canada–a place known to contain people to ask for $1, unlike the Atlantic Ocean–and raised over $24 million even though he was ultimately unsuccessful at running coast to coast due to his own cancer, which took his life soon after. Raise your hand if you believe CNN would have covered this had something happened to prevent Paul Ridley from rowing the whole way across the Atlantic. So, yes, his success at completing the journey has drawn attention and will probably draw funds, but two points: 1) He clearly focused more on buying the boat and getting it and himself ready than on raising funds, and 2) If he had been unsuccessful, he’d still have the boat and the attempt, but probably not nearly as many funds. He took a rather large risk of blowing the whole venture and completely stalling out at $100,000.
I’ll wait and see where his funds totals end up, but I think the comparison with Terry Fox is strained at best.
