{"id":1326,"date":"2025-05-05T03:24:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T03:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2025-05-05T03:24:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T03:24:24","slug":"out-of-jail-5-1-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/05\/out-of-jail-5-1-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of Jail (5\/1\/25)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Photo courtesy of Shining Star staff)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Pay your dues, and your debts.” – Dave Matthews Band<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of the few blog posts that’s not specifically an athletic blog. But it has a tie in\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Blue Star Network was extremely strong where I lived and in the surrounding towns. For those of you who aren’t aware of what it was, the short version was the people would sign up as a “safe harbor” and put a blue star in their window to signify that. Then if you were being abused or in trouble, you could go to one of those houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that this network made it easier for my parents to give me some of the freedoms I did at the time. This meant a lot of going to soccer practice\/games and some Little League games on my own. I am also fairly certain that without it, my parents would not have allowed me to be delivering the paper or collecting for it on my own in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly thirty years later, I happened upon Shining Star through their Jail and Bail fundraiser. While it didn’t work to participate in 2023, I did in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was unable to make my “bail” in 2024, I was more disappointed that I had been about not making any other fundraising goal. The simple reason was that I knew how much every dollar I was unable to raise could have helped. Because of scheduling conflicts, I was also unable to make it to Dixon to “surrender” after not making my “bail”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when 2025’s fundraiser was announced, my goal was to “make up” for what I hadn’t raised in 2024. Apparently I have friends and family that really want to see me in jail, as offering to “serve time” in Dixon led to some sizable donations. So on May 1st, I headed down to Dixon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the photo shown above was taken, I started pushing it out (social, texts, etc.) While I didn’t reach my “bail” for the second year, I was eventually let out\u2026 But during my time there, I had a chance to talk with Jessica (their Executive Director). I learned a lot more about Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) and Shining Star as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, I now realize how crucial support is for the CACs in the smaller counties. Lee and Ogle Counties (which Shining Star serves) together are about 55% of the size of the town I live in. This means that fundraising is crucial to ensure that they can continue to provide services to the children who need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please consider supporting my fundraiser ()http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/jgss25<\/a> or donating directly to Shining Star ()https:\/\/shiningstarcac.com\/support-us<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will be continuing to participate in this fundraiser as long as it continues. It’s a fun way to help so many, and to help repay a debt of safety I had so many years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo courtesy of Shining Star staff) “Pay your dues, and your debts.” – Dave Matthews Band This is one of the few blog posts that’s not specifically an athletic blog. But it has a tie in\u2026 In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Blue Star Network was extremely strong where I lived and in … Continue reading Out of Jail (5\/1\/25)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nocrappyexcuses.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}