Dear brothers and sisters,
We have searched the entire east coast to find at least a handful of your spiritual brothers and sisters that were adversely affected somehow by Hurricane Irene. Having found them, we would like to address the dozens and maybe hundreds of letters and emails and phone calls that are sure to come any minute now. Yes, Watchtower will be helping them out. It may be that we will send volunteers using their own vehicle and their own gas to patch their roofs, but we will spring for the shingles or maybe we will just give them 40 hours of credit toward their month as pioneers so they can patch their own damned roof. But rest assured, we will help them.
That said, of course we want you to send your donations toward that help. With disasters in the past, we saw how much you all wanted to help with clothing and food and even automobiles. We saw what a goldmine such goodwill on the part of our people could be for us. Therefore, we established the "money-only" donation arrangement and we insisted that you don't earmark your donation specifically for the disaster relief, just in case we have a little left over to use for "other" things. (We made a killing on that Tsunami thing in Asia where virtually no Witnesses were affected.)
So, it's time again to dig deep and send extra money for a specific purpose without insisting that it go for that specific purpose. Please approach the elders if you are cash-strapped so they can explain how you can also donate family heirloom jewelry or refinance your mortgage to help out.
If you were adversely affected by Hurricane Irene, please tell the elders so they can pass it on to us. Maybe we'll get the RBC to find someone to fix your roof if the local brothers donate enough money for us to spring for the shingles. Or, maybe we'll credit you with 40 hours of field service if you have been a longtime faithful suckass pioneer.
Sincerely, The Governing Body