(I am adding this here because there may be folks who do not frequent the Piano Forum room.)

As some of you already know, an unimaginable tragedy has happened to one of our own.

Peggy, who you all know as Justme, moved to the Northport, Florida a couple years ago to be near her family and grandchildren. As you may have seen on the national news, her daughter-in-law.. her grandchildren’s mother .. Denise Amber Lee was abducted from her home and murdered Thursday. You can read more about the family, the crime and her fight to stay alive at this link and the various links on the bottom of that page.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080118/BREAKING/624076310

Peggy has been around these forums since day one. She has always been respected. As a former piano dealer she has been a source of information and wisdom for piano shoppers, and always a voice for compassion for everyone here. In all these years we have never, ever seen anyone who did not like her.

This is the stuff that happens to other people - not people we know. But it did. Noah, 2, and Adam, 6 months, are left without their mother and Peggy’s son, Nathan without his wife. They will not remember their mother - a sadder circumstance we cannot imagine.

These kids and Nathan are going to need a lot of help in the coming days and years. We have an opportunity here to help take care of our own. We are starting a fund to both help this family with today’s expenses and hopefully also an education fund for the boys. This will include at least Piano World, The New Coffee Room, the Well Tempered Forum and Piano Facts.

What we ask of you now is not to send a check yet, but to PM your pledge amount to Jodi, who is present by that name in all the forums, and to post that you have pledged in this thread. You need not include the amount in this thread and no list of who gave how much will ever be published. We are asking for this pledge in advance of the check so that we can figure out the appropriate vehicle for the collection of funds. We want you to post a quick response in this thread once you've PM’ed Jodi so that we can gauge how close we are to hearing from everyone who's expressed an interest to help out - again the idea is for us to know approximately how much we'll collect beforehand so we can set up the collection facility accordingly. We will post details of where to actually send checks in the coming days.

We will work on the legalities of the fund tomorrow with the attorneys who are members of the various fora and Peggy’s close friends, in order to assure proper collection, handling and distribution of all funds. The details will be available to all.

Our sincere hope is that we can collect enough to help the boys today and in the future, to ease the burden on their father today, and to take advantage of the power of time to help with their education in the coming years.

We ask that you help with what you can, however big or small. The online piano community has an amazing diversity in people’s location, age and circumstance, so every donation is a godsend, one you should be proud of. We cannot bring Denise back to her children - but with hundreds, maybe thousands, of current active posters and readers we can work a miracle where one is surely needed today.

Sincerely,

Mikhailoh
Jon NYC
George K
Larry
Jack Frost
Jodi
et al

(We would love but for space and time to list ALL of you... everyone who has expressed their support, prayers and compassion. Despite our disagreements on here, we ARE a community, and we would challenge you to find one better.)

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