Request for sponsorship for Queer & BIPOC knife sharpening mentees

I'd like to ask something of my friends and neighbors: Can I get your help sponsoring BIPOC and/or queer people, especially those who have gender-expansive identities and/or are living with disabilities and challenges relating to neurodiversity, for a trade skills mentorship?

Details: As a mental health provider, I see the challenges of people with these marginalized identity factors all the time. Many take advantage of the generous sliding scale payment option that my clinic offers. Day in and day out, I hear their struggles with job-security and income, which I have also heard from so many other community members with these and other marginalized identity factors.

I've been sharpening knives on the side as a fundraiser since October of 2020. I probably only do an average of less than 10 hours a week of sharpening and that was enough to generate over $40k of donations in the first year. People are spreading the word and I hope it will continue to grow. This is a highly in-demand trade skill and there aren't that many people doing it. The nearest professional sharpener to my home charges $2.50/inch and has a four-week backlog. My peak production rate is somewhere around 2 inches per minute.

Let's set up this hypothetical equation:

$2/inch x 120 inches/hour x 3 hours/day x 250 days/year = $180k per year.

Think about that...A person doing this could be making a very decent living. $2/inch reflects the scarcity of tradespeople in Seattle and the expensive cost of living here. Even at $1/inch, that's still a living. Even at a lower production rate of 60 in/hour, that's pretty decent income for a part-time job. On top of this, people drop knives off at my door. For someone living with disabilities, knife sharpening could be a way for the work to come to them.

So...I decided to level up my knife sharpening fundraiser into a knife sharpening community of BIPOC/queer folks teaching other BIPOC/queer folks how to do this for a living. That is going to start with me providing a 6 month mentorship to 10 people without taking any money from them. And then I'm going to ask those who make it through the program to take on their own mentees that they won't take money from. And so on. I announced it awhile back in a queer community online and applications for the 10 spots I have available are pouring in. We're starting this on March 20th.

My ask to my friends is to join me in this effort to improve the lives of those in great need. I'll be providing the education for free. Some of the people applying could really use some help with supplies. It's about $300 worth of equipment to get started so that they can start making some money doing hand-sharpening. That will bring in income so that they can buy the machinery needed to raise their production rate to 100-120 in/hour.

There's a couple of ways you can help:

1) Venmo me a contribution of any amount. It will go towards purchasing equipment for the mentees and I won't keep any of it. If this interests you, Venmo me @Tai-Lee

2) Continue sending me your knives and pay me instead of donating. I also won't keep any of it. Email qbipocknifesharpening@gmail.com to make arrangements.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.