Remember this from our update on Eagle Village a few days ago?
To date our Warm Hearts Fund is not doing very well. I’d encourage folks to do a little surfing on the web and check out what interior Alaska is like in the winter. Folks here don’t dress for fashion…but for survival. Good quality winter gear is hard to come by at a reasonable cost. Getting outfitted is expensive and those who lost everything can expect to pay about $800 to get one set of gear, that does not include long johns, multiple types of socks and the variety of foot gear needed. PLEASE seriously consider helping with this fund. You can contribute by calling BIG RAYS in Fairbanks, Alaska at 907.452.3458 and purchasing a winter clothing gift card.
We contacted Big Ray’s to ask if there was a way to donate online and they scrambled around and made one. You can now donate on their website.
The base donation is $10 and you can donate more by increasing the quantity in the shopping cart.
Big Ray’s is offering a 20% discount to Eagle Village residents and distributing gift cards to those who need them most.
This long-time Fairbanks business has a long history in Alaska and we appreciate their help in keeping Eagle Village residents warm this winter!
A special thanks to Angela for making this happen!!
~ Jane
We’re plunging into new media via Twitter. Follow us to be alerted of new posts. Minimal tweets, we promise.
July 2, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Sorry to come late – just saw this post for the first time.
Can we also donate ‘gently used’ warm clothing? Where would we send it to?
July 2, 2009 at 7:57 pm
FEDUP!!!
Eagle Village has a terrific WikiSpace page:
http://eaglefloodinfo.wikispaces.com/
You’ll find plenty of contact info there. I’m sure “gently used” warm clothing would be appreciated. If you learn more about where to send winter gear donations, please let us know and we’ll pass it along.
We’re all fed up.
~ Jane
July 2, 2009 at 10:47 pm
This works really well!
Good on ya Big Rays!
Nice site …
Sending thanks to Angela too, Jane .
Eagle has been in my thoughts for weeks now. For those who check out their wikispaces page, I found flat rate boxes worked well for heavy tools.
This online donate-for-warm-clothes via a gift card is , personally, REALLY ccol. I HATE clothes shopping for anyone and now folks can do it for themselves…
July 3, 2009 at 6:24 am
Thank you for making it so easy to help out! I’ll pass the word on.
July 3, 2009 at 11:08 am
I was raised in Fairbanks and (hope this doesn’t sound too much like an advertisement) Big Ray’s the best. They have the stuff that works. I loved my electric socks.
People who haven’t been to Interior Alaska may not understand how cold it gets. It gets really, really cold. My high school cross country ski coach claimed we couldn’t freeze our lungs unless it was a hundred below. So we went out no matter what. I don’t think we ever skied in 60 below, but we often skied when it was below 50 below. Our coldest was probably 58 below. We simply couldn’t stay out more than about 25 minutes before we had to come in and warm up. It was really, totally, butt freezingly cold! It still gets cold but usually not as bad as the 1960s-70s.
One time they had an extreme cold snap back in the 80s and a filming crew (I think it was Sears doing a DieHard ad) got stuck at Coldfoot in the Brooks Range. The temperature went all the way down to about 81 below. The director persevered. As a consequence (as I recall) they suffered frostbite. They’d brought some wolves from the Lower 48, and the wolves wouldn’t get out of the van– a stark reminder of how animals may be more intelligent than humans. Finally a Twin Otter from Fairbanks flew up and evacuated the southerners (and the wolves) before they became ice sculptures.
Anyway, it gets cold at Eagle– very, very cold. And dark.