Rally round, people
In the elongated coin collecting community, there’s a long tradition of creating smashed pennies for charitable purposes. When jaylake was struck with colon cancer, I did the only thing a smashed penny collector could do. I put out a call to roller-designers, seeking someone to work with me to create an EC in Jay’s honor to help raise money for his favorite cause.
Jay’s favorite charity is the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund, which helps professional science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery writers living in the Pacific Northwest deal with the financial burden of medical expenses. Writers don't make a lot of money (unless, you know, they're Stephen King) and rarely are able to afford their own insurance, so this fund helps good, creative people get the care they need. You can learn more about it online.
For those of you who don't know Jay, let me explain the coin: The design includes Jay’s name and the legend “In Clockpunk We Trust.” Jay’s most recent novel, Mainspring, takes place in a world driven by gears and wind-up technology. This sort of speculative fiction has been dubbed “clockpunk” by people in the science fiction community, hence the legend on the coin. The gears directly refer to the novel. The rocket ship refers to Jay’s first novel, Rocket Science. The initials of Jim Kilcoyne, who engraved and rolled the coin, appear on one end of the coin; mine, because I was the designer, appear on the other.
Here’s the deal: I’d like to raise a big donation to send to the Clayton Fund in honor of Jay. If you send me a check made out to “Clayton Memorial Medical Fund” for at least one dollar, I’ll send you the Jay Lake elongated coin (rolled exclusively on copper cents). If you send $25-$99, I’ll also include an elongated quarter from Seattle’s Space Needle. If you donate $100 or more, I’ll include a complete set of Space Needle quarters. To get my mailing address, please write me and I'll send it to you. (I don't feel like sharing my private address with the entire interwebs.) I get a check; you get the coin(s).
Alternatively, if you'd prefer to donate directly to the Clayton Fund via their Paypal system, do that and please e-mail me a copy of your receipt. Said copy will serve as qualification for receiving the coin(s). The receipt will ensure a donation is made and still let me track how much we raise as a group.
Let's pull together a huge donation, people.
And yes, jaylake, you'll be getting a quantity of these for your birthday in two weeks. :-) Hope you like 'em. (I'll also provide you with contact information for the roller in case you want to order more.)
Edited 20:56, 5/29/09: Added the Clayton Fund PayPal receipt option.