Dear Deborah - I wanted to tell you that I truly enjoyed the article you wrote about Modest Needs and how much I appreciated your sending a link to me. I love the comparison you create to Distributed Computing. I think it's much more resonant - and more accurate - than the original comparison of Modest Needs to 'file sharing' programs like 'Napster.' By the way - and I don't know if you realize this - but persons reading your blog gave a total of about $200 to Modest Needs last night. When you consider that Modest Needs *average* day is about $350, these persons actually nearly *doubled* the amount of support available to our applicants yesterday. I've always said that if the blogging community were to latch on to Modest Needs - talk about it and support it occasionally - there'd be no end to the good all of us could do by working together. I can illustrate this with a simple example, derived from readers of THIS blog. At Modest Needs, we've had for about three weeks an application for assistance with homeowner's insurance. Without going into all of the details, it is a *very* strong application. For us, it's also expensive - around $795 to fund it. For three weeks, I've been working to find a way to assist this person. Your article published, your readers gave, and as a result, this family isn't losing one of their most important assets. Truly remarkable, this distributed philanthropy, is it not? My very best to you and your readers. Thank you again for your kindness and generosity. Dr. Keith P. Taylor President/Executive Director Modest Needs Foundation http://www.modestneeds.org 'Small Change: A World of Difference'