Tuolumne County Green Cross
14560 Long Ave.
Moose River, CA. 95222

Anne Amoureux
279 Papyrus St
Moose River, CA. 95222

Dear Anne,

	My name is Avery Mann, and I'm the new Communications Director over at the Tuolumne County Green Cross, and I'm writing this letter to you to, well... communicate to you that the Green Cross is in dire straits and that we need your help. Since the original Tuolumne County Red Cross was forced to shut down in 2005 and the Green Cross was created to take its place, we have been struggling to stay afloat; in its time, it was easy for the Red Cross to stay alive—it lasted almost 140 years!—yet the Green Cross is using all its energy just to keep our heads barely above water. But it doesn't have to be this way! With your help, we can do more than just keep the Green Cross from drowning, we can breath new life and vitality into it and give it the energy it needs to swim back to shore!
	The Tuolumne County Green Cross provides care and service to millions of people throughout Tuolumne County. However, it costs a lot of money to do so, and we're barely making ends meet. Every year we're on the brink of being shut down, but fortunately, caring contributers like you have been able to pull through at the last minute and give that one contribution to the Green Cross that saves us. However this year, with the economy being as bad as it has been, it's been even harder to keep things together, and we were even forced to cut a few programs and shut down one or two Green Cross locations just to stay alive. The programs and locations that were cut where still very vital to the community, and I had the opportunity to see the people whose lives have been negatively affected by the closure of these things.
	Tyrone Wallace has been living on the streets since 1979, a veteran of the US Marines and had spent several years overseas. When Tyrone was honorably discharged in 1977, he came home to a family who didn't want him, jobs who felt he was either over- or under-qualified, and a society who—in his opinion—rejected him throughly. Since then he turned to drugs and has been living in St. Roger's Park in Downtown Sonora for the past ten years. But one day he decided to turn to the Tuolumne County Green Cross for help; he has been living his life for some twenty-five years before realizing that he needed a change. The Green Cross closest to his location helped Tyrone out with food, clothing, shelter, help with his drug addiction and various free medical services... until the Green Cross location that served him had to be shut down due to low funds. I've since linked up with Tyrone since the closure and discovered he is back out on the streets, using drugs even more heavily, and has once again felt that society had rejected him just when he was starting to feel that life was finally changing for the better for him.
	Alfred Chen lived in Chinese Camp and was the youngest of five children. The rest of his brothers were actually part of the various Chinese gangs in Chinese Camp, adding to the major gang problem in Chinese Camp. Alfred felt the pull and lure of the gangs, but realized it was a dead end for him and his life and wanted something more. The Tuolumne County Green Cross in Chinese Camp had an Afterschool Program for students like Alfred which helped them stay off the streets and gave them a save environment for them to study and do their homework in. However, as part of the various budget cuts the Green Cross was forced to do, Alfred's Afterschool programs were cut down to almost nothing, leaving Alfred with no place to go after school. Since then I've come in contact with Alfred's teachers and discovered that his grades, which were on the rebound because of the Afterschool programs, were slipping once again, and found that Alfred was starting to hang out with his older brothers more often than not.
	There's more to the deletion of school programs and closure of Green Cross locations than, well, their deletion and closure. They affect everyone, whether you see it immediately or not. If we had all our programs and locations back again, you'll see less people out on the streets, people like Tyrone Wallace. You'll see less gangs out on the street, terrorizing neighborhoods, less gang members like Afred Chen. But it doesn't have to happen this way. The solution to all the big problems out there in the world is something as simple as a single phone call or letter to the Green Cross with your donation to us. Because as soon as we can gather enough contributions, we can keep those programs going, we can keep those locations up and running, and this means we can keep providing each neighborhood with the goods and services they need to stay on the straight and narrow path rather than quitting on life and doing their part to make this world a worse place.
	We know you don't like to see this world crumble apart whilst feeling hopeless because you feel you can't do anything about it. But the reality is, you can make this world a better place. And all it takes is a single contribution to your local Tuolumne County Green Cross. So please, make that contribution by calling 1-888-HELP-TCGC or sending a check to our main office, and do your part to make someone's life that much better. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Avery Mann
Avery Mann
Communications Director
Tuolumne County Green Cross

P.S. We might actually be restarting some locations that were previously closed! If you make a contribution of $1,000 or more, I'll personally make sure that we dedicate an important piece of the new or restarted location in your honor. How about that, huh? :)