OT: Providing Hope Va

The address is a home in a very rural area in Stafford county which is a bit odd that the address says "Fredericksburg, VA", but I suppose that's just the post office.

With the amount of glitz on the web page it seems like a good front for a dubious charity. Of real concern is the virtual absence of any real information about the group or what they do.

That's only a few miles from me.

Yeah, I'm holding off on this one, don't like it.

Ever go to a BBQ place called "The Smokey Pig" in Ashland, VA? Apparently it was in business for many decades. My mother used to take me there as a kid when my grandmother lived in that area long time ago, late 1980s probably. some of the best ribs I'd ever had. I was sad to hear it looks like it has closed.

a bit odd that the address says "Fredericksburg, VA", but I suppose that's just the post office.

a dubious charity. Of real concern is the virtual absence of any real inf ormation about the group or what they do.

Been through Ashland many times, but BBQ is not my thing. Ashland is prett y small, at least the town is. The main line of the tracks to Richmond go right through town so you can commute to Richmond or DC. There are shoppin g centers and big box stores between Rt 1 and the highway, I guess that's t he new part of town.

They have what might be the world's smallest museum. It has room for about 1 visitor at a time.

It really sucks when someone runs a charity to rip off people. If they rea lly are a scam, they can be reported to the IRS. They appear to have regis tered as a 501(c)3

The "award" photos look like they might have been photoshopped, something seems fishy about them.

It seems like a hard thing to find enough evidence for independently without having LEO-type resources. Lots of people who donated money to...somebody and weren't invited to any award presentation. Well, that's the way it usually goes for most people with raffles.

Most grifters tend to be a bit smarter than the average crook and by the time law enforcement catches on hard they tend to be long gone just a vacant address and some dead phone numbers with bogus info.

Here's joke about a raffle I recently saw.

Curtis & Leroy saw an ad in the Starkville Daily in Starkville, MS. and bought a mule for $100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day

The next morning the farmer drove up and said,"Sorry, fellows, I have some bad news, the mule died last night." Curtis & Leroy replied,"Well, then just give us our money back." The farmer said,"Can't do that. I went and spent it already." They said, "OK then, just bring us the dead mule." The farmer asked, "What in the world ya'll gonna do with a dead mule?"

Curtis said, "We gonna raffle him off." The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead mule!" Leroy said, "We shore can! Heck, we don't hafta tell nobody he's dead!" A couple of weeks later, the farmer ran into Curtis & Leroy at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and asked. "What'd you fellers ever do with that dead mule?" They said,"We raffled him off like we said we wuz gonna do."

Leroy said,"Shucks, we sold 500 tickets fer two dollars apiece and made a profit of $998."

The farmer said,"My Lord, didn't anyone complain?"

Curtis said, "Well, the feller who won got upset. So we gave him his two dollars back."

$898 - they didn't get back their original $100.

Hmmmmmm:

Ya, I noted that also, I just copied and pasted, the fun is in the joke not analyzing it.

Mikek

Probably just normal jpg artifact-ing