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Tell HN: Thank You
476 points by atdrummond on Dec 26, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 41 comments
On Christmas Eve I made a post trying to ensure that all of our fellow users were at the very least safe and fed over the holiday weekend.

Thanks to your help, I was able to distribute to over 40 people/families nearly $8000 worth of food, hotels and cash.

I will try to ensure we do this type of thing more often; while I was surprised by the level of need in the community, I was even more impressed by the desire to help fix it.

Thank you everyone.




Thank you too! With the war in my country, we're barely meeting ends, and couldn't prepare for Christmas. I wasn't sure about asking for help, but we've been struggling for a while, and even the holidays weren't looking to be any cheer for us. Although I doubted that we deserved it - there are many people who have it much worse, forced out of their houses, - I still reached out. I don't know if it's right of me to do so, but I surely am glad to see my family having better holidays.

I feel depressed about life, following news, and the world feels ever more grim. Just two days ago I found out that a developer of one of my favorite games "Stalker Clear Sky", died in Bakhmut, fighting on the front lines... And there are suicide drones and rockets flying by my location occasionally. We have regular electricity shutdowns.

But this helps. We've bought Christmas presents for my brother, got food to last the days, and we'll have a good celebration for New Year, what with a cake, meat and other foods of value. It's a kindness that makes me feel better about the world and people out there.

Thanks :))


I think it's not proper of me to add, but I'll reach out for help once more, feeling encouraged: I'd like to find some remote work. I have the following skills, among others:

- I am good at language learning, could teach anyone efficient techniques in the field, as, apart from my native Ukrainian and Russian, I am self-taught at English, German, and a bit higher than beginner Japanese. Not only that, but I am also good at learning in general, helping out people in Discord for 2 years in the Anki community.

- I am a bit higher than beginner at programming. I can manage some simple programs, such as a GUI that adds tasks to SQLite documents and kills background processes if any tasks unfinished.

- I'm good at relationships with people, having worked in customer support, and I've read a couple of books on the subject. I manage a Discord community, if that is saying anything.

If you got any advice, or would like to hire me, email is in profile, or write here :) It's frustratingly hard to find any work - I don't have certificates, nor work experience in the relevant fields. I am also outside a city, so there are few local jobs.

Sorry if this is improper(plugging my job seeking in a joyful thread like this one). I am trying to survive and feed my family.


Don’t forget the HN threads for jobs on the 1st.

I’m working on this for you as well; should have more info tomorrow!


If you'd like some small programming jobs I'm sure I can find some for you to do while learning. My email is in my profile (as is my telegram, keybase).


We don't talk about it much on HN but I for one follow very closely and have given several thousand euros over the past year. This is not to pump myself up (it's the least I could do), but rather because you need to know that Ukraine isn't alone.

Stay strong.


Same here, and I know others who do the same, you're not alone! Stay strong!


It's relieving to hear that. Thanks, leandot!


Thank you, vertis :)


Thank you for this.


In my mind, I have an image that the median HN user works at a startup or FAANG company, getting paid a generous salary and living comfortably enough to not need to worry about these basic needs.

Thank you for highlighting that there are others out there who down on their luck (to put it mildly), with many things out of control. For example, the user who posted from Ukraine really struck a chord with me. Who would've thought last Christmas that this one would be so different for Ukrainians?

What you have done is amazing. HN is truly a fantastic community. I wish everyone a wonderful and happy holidays.


The post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34122118


I feel bad that my immediate thought wasn't "what a wonderful gesture" but instead was "how many of those in need were scammers?"

It's weird to me that I like to think of myself as a positive person but come up with that sort of thing.


Most people frankly went out of their way to assuage that concern with their initial e-mail to me. And even if one or two wasn't 100% legitimate... I'm OK with that "hit rate". Helping those truly in need makes those necessary mistakes worth it.


That's good to hear, thank you.

Thing is, I'm totally OK with some "inefficiency" in public programmes like healthcare or food security.

And thank you for being a good person and doing something when most people just wish that someone else would take care of it.


A while back I spent some time working with homelessness charities in Australia as part of a corporate sponsorship. It was, to say the least, enlightening.

Australia has a very robust framework for dealing with homelessness and so a much deeper understanding than a lot of countries.

I used to have this perception that you had to be on drugs, etc to end up homeless and it's just not true. There is such a broad set of circumstances that can lead to homelessness and for women in particular the leading cause is domestic violence.

But not having a support network around you (or if you have some then it's couchsurfing, which is a form of homelessness), is very easy. Plenty of people don't have strong support networks to fall back on.

Scammers exist, but we can't let that stop us from helping the many many people that need support (even more with the cost of living crisis).


Maybe it would be useful to have some kind of organization where people down on their luck but truly through no major fault of their own could anonymously register and receive some assistance. I think more people would be more generous if they didn’t think it was largely going to scammers.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t help everyone, just saying that it would be probably much easier to get more support for this.


If a person was out to scam people by looking for handouts that they don’t need, the last place they would be prowling would probably be a message board for individualist tech entrepeneurs and wage worker technologists who don’t believe that it’s possible to make less than 80K USD as a programmer (stereotypes).


I'd be happy to contribute to something yearly in order to help during the holidays, this community means a lot to me despite knowing mostly no-one and having made no real connections over the years. But you've all helped me grow and learn significantly.


The Hacker News Holiday Fund


Hi, I just wanna confirm this guy is for real.

Sent him a lengthy email about my situation a while ago and he immediately responded.

Thank you very much @atdrummond, I'll share these blessings with the people here. Happy holidays everyone!


Well done giant. I followed your thread and was impressed also by how many others also offered their assistance.

Very happy to be part of this community.


Incredibly commendable and a genuine show of humanity in times when one can look around the world and see a complete lack of it.

Well done, you're a top individual. Wish the world had more people like you.


No, thank YOU.

Amazing.


Did you cover the $8000 yourself? I would contribute to that.


I covered the majority. One person sent me a decent sum; I’ll share their name once they tell me it is OK to do so.

Feel free to email me if you want to. I have some requests for help trickling in still and probably have it under control but I won’t say no to assistance.


I sent OP $1000

Sharing this here in the hope it inspires others who have the means to do the same.


As did I.


I sent you a message on keybase. Happy to contribute as well.


Sent you an email - I am locked out of my KeyBase for 5 days for doing an account reset.


Where was the original thread on this? I'm not sure how I missed it. Would have been (and still am) happy to contribute.


Thats fantastic. Thank you atdrummond.


Thank you to HN friends for keeping me entertained and motivated. Thank you.


I just checked out that post. Amazing.

The world needs more people like you.


Awesome, that's thoughtful. Much more impactful.


It was a very nice gesture, thank you for this!


Who are you?


Nobody - but I think anyone has the capacity to make another person's day a little bit better.


Nah, you Somebody now. Inspiring.


I find it incredible that you even put a phone number on your HN profile. Wow.


Not the OP, but it can go both ways I guess. I believe in being contactable and subscribe the the patio11 approach. If you email me as a human, I'm going to read it and if I don't reply it's probably because something interrupted me while I was reading it so email again.

I'm happy to be challenged on anything I say and own it when I'm wrong, so see no need to be anonymous.


#humble




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