Help me make lemonade

While I was a semi-finalist in Purina's Live From Lexington contest, I met Laura Goldman (here is my blog entry including her). She is a para equestrian for dressage and will be competing at the World Equestrian Games. Here is an article about the Para-Dressage WEG Selection Trials, featuring a great picture of Laura in competition (below), from Phelps Media Group - http://www.phelpsmediagroup.com/viewarticle.php?id=5144.

Photo © 2010 Lindsay McCall/PMG

Laura is a super lady and I feel blessed to have had an opportunity to meet her. During our conversations I found out that Laura needs to come up with about $5000 to help cover the cost of competing. There just isn't enough money available through the US team to completely support all the athletes, and Laura and the other team members have to make up the difference.

When I lost the contest, I decided that I'd try and make lemonade out of lemons (not that I was bitter or anything ... okay maybe I was, a little. I'm only human, you know). I started trying to find a company to sponsor Laura. In exchange for a sponsorship for her, I offered to blog for said company from WEG. Even though I wasn't getting a free trip, through the generosity of my family (and another source that I'm not sure I can mention at the moment), I will be at WEG for the whole first week. That's eight days of blogging. So the deal was, sponsor Laura, and I blog for your company. Win-win, right?

I contacted as many big name equestrian companies as I could think of. Most of them were kind enough to respond, but none of the responses held good news.

"We don't do sponsorships."
"We already sponsor WEG competitors."
"We don't have the means to help you."
"We already have bloggers in place for the games."
"We are not interested."

A bunch of thanks, but no thanks. I will say that SmartPak was a fuzz away from making it happen. They were really stoked about it and for a day or so I thought it was going to get the green light. Alas, their financial people just couldn't make it work. Such a bummer, since I love that company.

I really want to help Laura. All I have to offer is my blogging. But I will pimp myself out for a company willing to help a woman who has more determination than ten average people. And she has a disease that tries to keep her from riding. But she does it anyway, and gives muscular dystrophy the finger every time she saddles up.

So this is where I ask for your help, and your ideas. Do any of you work for a company that might be willing to give this a go? Do you have any other ideas to help Laura out? I know I could start some kind of donation web site, but I'm afraid that time is running short and that might not do it. I've already contacted Ariat, Progressive Nutrition, Nutrena, SmartPak, and Absorbine, to name a few.

By the way, Laura doesn't know what I've been doing, but once she sees this she'll figure it out. :)

Please comment on my blog, or feel free to email me at dressagemomblog (at) yahoo (dot) com. Or if you want to, send a donation to the United States Para Equestrian Association (www.USPEA.org) IN LAURA GOLDMAN'S NAME. I am told that if you donate specifically in her name, it will go into an account that will benefit her personally. All donations are tax deductible.

Thanks everyone.