Election Rant Can Wait. Here is a 6-year-old Doing Something Important

Alright, so I tend to blog when something's really bugging me... Like politics. And you'll get the ranting soon, but it's all tangled up in my brain right now and I can't be articulate yet about everything I'm feeling ranty about.

Recreationally (as opposed to politically) my Twitter universe includes Neil Gaiman, because I like his books and his voice and he goes interesting places and tweets interesting and thinky tweets. One of his interesting Tweets today was this one:

RT @tafallen: 6yr old Jack's raising £ for Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital. Donate & he'll draw you a pic:www.jackdrawsanything.com

Now, I'm sure he's busy and often just fires of an interesting RT as a favour to someone, and I don't look at all of them but the URL sounded cute, so I went and looked at JackDrawsAnything
Not only is it totally adorable - what a great kid to be thinking on this kind of scope at 6 yrs old. I think it says a lot about him and his family that he's doing this. I have a sneaking suspicion after Mr. Gaiman's little plug that Jack is going to have to hire help. I had a look through his drawings so far, and I sent him a couple of pounds (they're using a verified online charity site, not a personal account). I felt like sharing the email I sent too, just because it was fun to write, and while I usually keep my support local, I believe strongly that hospitals everywhere providing free care need everything they can get. (You all know I'd not be here without them). If this little guy gets the idea now how important his work is, what do you imagine he may accomplish through the rest of his life?

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Hello, Jack!

A very nice writer named Neil Gaiman uses the Twitter service on the Internet, and he heard about you doing drawings to raise money for Sick Kids Hospital. Mr. Gaiman has over 1 million people who follow him on Twitter because they like what he writes, and he told them ALL about you! That is how I heard about you. I think you've come up with a wonderful project to support a great cause. I work for a company that writes computer software to make XRay pictures easy to read and store and share so all the doctors can see them really really well and use them to help make sick kids better, so there's a lot I like about giving money to hospitals. I was also really really sick once and almost died, and a good hospital like yours but in Canada helped me a great deal which is why I didn't die.

I don't live in the UK so I usually give money to my own hospital, but I have visited Edinburgh and thought it was great there. I liked your project so much I sent a bit of money to you for Sick Kids.

If you get a chance, I wonder if you could draw my Siamese cats for me? Siamese cats have a special sort of colour. They're pale-beige coloured but have dark gray or black noses, ears, tails and feet, and they have very very bright blue eyes. I have two of these kind of cats, named Blue and Sudo. Blue is a "blue point" which means she is pale gray coloured and dark gray on her ears, nose, feet and tail and Sudo is called a Seal point which means he is light brown with black ears, nose, feet and tail.

I think you are going to be very very busy with all the drawing. I understand you still have to go to school and eat your meals and sleep and I bet your parents have some chores for you to help with, so I completely understand if you can't do this drawing for a long time. That's OK. Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Johanna B
From Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.