Tom O.
Founder — the guy who did the math in a drive-thru
I was sitting in the drive-thru of a well-known coffee shop, paying more than $5 for a cold brew, when I caught a radio segment about student loan forgiveness. And a thought landed: I'd skip one cup of coffee a month to help pay off a stranger's student loan debt.
The math from there wasn't complicated. If enough people felt the same way, we could actually do something — not petition for something, not wait for something, but do something. Right now. For one real person.
My first instinct was a $5/month subscriber list, with one email a month naming the winner and showing exactly where the money went. Simple, transparent, real. My lawyer friends shut that down fast — "that's just a lottery," they said, "and raffles are tightly regulated."
So I rebuilt the idea. Instead of mandatory dues, voluntary donations. Instead of a lottery, a mutual aid pool. Instead of a company, a community. That's what you're looking at now.
I don't know if this is going to work. But I know what I'd do if offered the chance to erase someone's debt for the price of a coffee. And I think a lot of other people feel the same way.
If you've got questions, feedback, or you just want to talk about it — reach out. I answer everything.