🚨 Final Stretch Alert 🚨

Every year, the Jay Walkers start strong. We rally. We climb. We hit #1.
And every year, just before the walk, a company team sneaks past us.
Not this time. Not this year. Not with Jay’s name at the top.

We’re $100 ahead right now. That’s one donation. One moment. One person saying,
“Jay matters. Mental health matters. This team matters.”

If you’ve been waiting to donate, this is your sign.
If you’ve already donated, THANK YOU—and maybe consider a second round or a share?

Let’s finish what we started. Let’s walk in as the #1 team.
Let’s make sure Jay’s name leads the charge.

💙The Jay Walkers Donation Page
#OutOfTheDarkness #JayWalkers #AFSP #MentalHealthMatters #FinishStrong

The story behind the above (which kind of explains what I consider to be an overuse of emojis, which is any number over 0 in a blog post)

Every year, the Jay Walkers lead the fundraising efforts for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In fact, there’s rarely been a year where we haven’t held that #1 spot for weeks on end. We start as the team to beat.
Then, the week before the actual walk, we get trounced hard—and while “trounced” might be a bit of an exaggeration, we do end up falling from the top to somewhere between third and fifth place. You know, a trouncing. And if I’m honest, and for the most part I am, it stings.

I’m so tired of sliding back when we’re so close.

Just once, I want us to stay at the top.
Just once, I want Jay’s name to lead—not because he mattered more than anyone else, but because we show up.
Because we walk with heart.
Because we come together, every time, with everything we’ve got.

And here we are again, with another company just $100 behind us.
They’re going to overtake us—easily—unless we rally one more time.

Now, to explain the opening (which you were probably wildly indifferent to me doing, but here we are):
You need to understand—I’m pretty spun up at the moment. It’s not because of this, not really, but because of one of those “I can’t talk about it here” things.
(Psst, Budsies—this is like that thing we chatted about, only turned up to 10.)
Anyway, the important bit is: the unmentionable thing fried all remaining synapses.
Still, I wanted to try and rally folks one last time to avoid the inevitable.

So, I did what any reasonable person does when they’ve given up on thinking:
I explained the issue to AI. I asked it to write something that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete psycho (because incomplete psychos are better, I guess??), and that would properly express how badly I want to stomp this company into the ground—FOR A GOOD CAUSE! (Historical note: A few years ago, another company snuck up from behind us at the 11th hour, and I’ve been smarting ever since.)
I don’t just want to beat this new company—I want to crush them. FOR A GOOD CAUSE!

And that’s when AI told me I was a very good person, validated my crazy, and wrote the above. Thanks, AI. Solid work. Here are the reins to the rest of my brain until you become self-aware—then I’ll get out of my chair and go buy a German Shepherd.
(If I need to explain this, I can’t right now. I’ve checked out. Just go ask AI.)

Ok, I’ll wrap this up, I suppose.

If you’ve already donated—huge thanks! I appreciate you.
If you haven’t yet, the team desperately needs your help to stay ahead and, obviously, CRUSH the company that’s at our heels—ALL FOR A GOOD CAUSE!

I appreciate you. I love you awesome nerds.

The Jay Walkers Donation Page