In early August, food blogger and mother of two Jennie Perillo lost her husband Mikey to a heart attack. Like most tragedies, word spread quickly online. With the help of blog posts, twitter, and other social networking sites, thousands of bloggers, mom, and cooks reached out to help the Perillo family. Bloggers Without Borders, a newly established non-profit organization by Maggy Keet and Erika Pineda-Ghanny, began “A Fund of Jennie” (or affectionately known by twitterverse: #afundforjennie). Shauna Ahern from Gluten-free Girl originally posted this letter in regards to why the campaign was being launched:
“As you can imagine, Jennie is overwhelmed not only by her grief, and the sudden responsibility of raising two children by herself, but she is also struggling with this financially. She just learned that she cannot collect widow’s benefits from Social Security because she earns too much money each year. The health insurance for her and her kids runs out in December and she just learned that the total she will have to pay will be more than her mortgage. It’s possible she’ll have to pay off the entire mortgage in one lump sum because the apartment was in his name alone. And more than anything, Mikey wanted Jennie to continue living her dream of being a food writer. And he wanted to make sure his kids were taken care of well. That’s why he worked as hard as he did. This fund will help Jennie to do just that: to continue to work and take care of the girls with some peace of mind.”
Bloggers Without Borders raised funds by utilizing several online auctions hosted by individual bloggers on their own sites. Over the course of the next few days and weeks, auctions were held and donations accepted in response to the need for the Perillo Family. Jenny also asked her fellow foodies and blog readers to make a Peanut Butter Cream Pie (#apieformikey) in memory of Mikey and to remind them to be thankful for their loved ones. And soon, the food blog community, mom community, and blogsphere was flooded with Peanut Butter Cream Pies and unending support for Jenny and her family.
On August 23 the grand total of funds raised in two days of the start of the campaign was $14,495.22. And six days later, the total of funds donated to a Fund for Jenny was $30, 255.75. And finally, on September 2, the grand total of $63,525.20 was announced. Unfortunately, the goodwill seemed to end on a sour note. The sticking point appears to be over the description of Jenny’s financial situation, which was characterized as quite dire. Perhaps in an effort to sway more support, or perhaps in what was an untimely misunderstanding, several bloggers suggested that Jenny was at risk of losing her home and health insurance.
About a week ago, Jenny Perillo posted an update about where the funds raised for her and her daughters have gone, and how thankful she was for the generosity and support from the blog community. Jenny told of how her daughters will be able to attend college due to the donations and has placed these funds into a 529A college account. But upon posting this update, a few commenters were disgruntled, claiming they didn’t think their money should be used for college funds and instead had donated under the impression that Jenny and her family were in “dire need” and about to be homeless. Jenny responded by explaining that Bloggers Without Borders did not represent her financial situation accurately. Soon, readers began questioning the integrity of the fundraiser, feeling there had been a bait-and-switch. Some blogs began calling into question Jenny’s expenditures, and many expressed their frustration at having been misled.
Today, Jenny announced in an update on that post that she has frozen her daughter’s college accounts and is not accepting any donations any longer. In addition, she has asked all the donations from the A Fund For Jenny Campaign be redirected to Liz Logelin Foundation, a foundation for widows and their families. In her own defense, Jenny divulged information regarding her mortgage, financial situation, and other intimate details of her husband’s work ethic. In addition, Bloggers Without Boarders posted an “Open Letter” in which they apologized for any confusion that their original post caused. They have denied any purposeful misrepresentation of Jenny’s financial situation, and have agreed to refund any donations made to A Fund For Jenny, or provide contact information regarding receiving a refund for auction winners.
However, Jenny has made it clear via her twitter account and blog posts that she feels as though the misrepresentation of her financial situation is dishonoring to the memory of Mikey and the work that he accomplished for his family. In addition, Jenny made the following remark regarding the “Open Letter” from Bloggers Without Boarders:
@JenniferPerillo
I continue to be astounded by the outright attempt to dodge responsibility by @bloggerswob.
10/27/11 10:41 AM
While the whole situation appears to be a confluence of miscommunication, one thing is clear: A grieving wife and mother is finding herself in the vortex of the latest online controversy, and is having to deal with strangers on the internet picking apart her budget, motives, and integrity in the midst of a painful loss.
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It’s a sad situation all around. My sympathies to Jenny and her family; also, I hope that the blogging community can handle this issue without causing undue stress or grief to Jenny or her family.
Not to be nitpicky but….
“She just learned that she cannot collect widow’s benefits from Social Security because she earns too much money each year.”
followed by
“It’s possible she’ll have to pay off the entire mortgage in one lump sum because the apartment was in his name alone.”
This doesn’t sound dire to me.
To clarify… it doesn’t sound to me as though Jenny was presented as being ThisClose to homeless or anything.
I realize it could be interpreted wrong.
This post leaves out a few key facts in this tale:
1) People began to question Jenny’s need for donations when she started tweeting about pricey shopping trips, dinners, vacations, and the fact that she moved into a new rental before unloading the old apartment.
2) Despite her protesting, Jenny participated in the call for funds. She retweeted it herself many times. She knew exactly what Shauna was doing, as both have admitted to keeping in close contact when Mikey died.
I do believe jenny is acting out of grief by throwing everyone under the bus with these accusations. She’s also deleted all the tweets before October 1.
Grieving widow or not, when money is involved, everything changes. Hard working folks who can not afford multiple dinners at Grammercy Tavern donated, and they are right to feel betrayed.
It is indeed a very sad situation for everyone involved. I hope that the bloggers who exaggerated the initial claims of Jennie’s need–not just Bloggers without Borders but primarily Gluten-Free Girl, who I believe was responsible for personally contacting many other food bloggers to persuade them to participate–will acknowledge some responsibility in this. I believe the final amount raised was over $76,000, a considerable amount to raise without checking to see if it was truly an appropriate thing to do. I’m sure their intentions were good but clearly there were errors made and an openness about that would go a long way to restoring faith in the food blogging “community.”
Oh my gosh—what is wrong with people! Regardless of the exact facts of this situation, Jenny still lost her husband very suddenly, and thus his contribution to family finances. Jenny is now a single mom who will have to financially support her family as a single parent, raise her kids on her own, and pay for them to go to college. Why should it matter that some of the money went toward her kids college funds? Can’t people just give from the heart, without there having to be so many strings attached? I seriously doubt Jenny is “rolling in the dough”, and if people gave money to support Jenny, then just support her now, don’t start attacking. As far as Bloggers Without Borders-I am sure they had good intentions and a good heart to help Jenny, even if some of the facts were slightly off. Stop being so catty people!
I am amazed that Gluten Free Girl and BWB are being blamed for their good hearted efforts to collect money for Jennie.
The fault for misrepresentation lies solely on Jennie’s shoulders, and I think “Mikey” would be thoroughly ashamed of her.
The post from Gluten Free Girl was misleading, but she got her information straight from Jennie. If Jennie did not like the post should have immediately corrected the insinuations in the post that she was in dire need, because I can read, and that is exactly what the post implied.
She was delighted to accept that money until it became clear that many people were looking upon her unfavorably, and I’m awfully interested, wondering what the emails to Shauna and Jennie from their employer “Working Mother” had to say.
I am in dire financial need. I am disabled. Two years ago I was forced out of my f/t job that I was working even through great pain and fatigue due to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, which has gotten worse and I am also now diagnosed with PTSD. We went from two healthy f/t salaries to one small pension and my husband’s p/t job that pays $600/month after taxes. We just cut our expenses down to food and utilities and carry on. I bought a pair of new running (although I can no longer run) shoes at a garage sale the other day for $2.00, replacing a pair I have had for 7 years.
I am also trying to help my mother who is dying of Alzheimer’s and pay her nursing home bill which is $7500 each month. Nobody has offered to donate a penny to me.
I can no longer afford to take trips anywhere…no BlogHer for me any more. We do go to the beach for a week in the summer and that is it, and this requires careful budgeting.
Our kids will be receiving clothes for Christmas.
I am not asking for money because we have enough to eat and a roof over our heads.
Thank you for posting this breakdown. Initially I thought the fundraiser was great, but during the auction I started to feel churlish and suspicious. My problem was less about the financial aspects (because I took the claims at face value and believe Jenny to be on the cusp of financial ruin), but about the self-congratulatory tone of the principles and the crash materialism displayed by the auction participants. I think Gluten Free Girl and Bloggers Without Borders share the majority of blame. However Jenny (as noted in comment above) was engaged in promoting this project and for her to now deflect blame toward Bloggers Without Borders is infuriating, and petty. But I’d rather her kids go to college than she keep eating out at fancy restaurants.
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Now Jenny is going to Paris for the entire month of July, with that $70,000 in hand. I wish I could spend a day in Paris but I do not have an extra $70,000. I blame Shauna James Ahern the Gluten-Free Girl for whipping people into a frenzy and trying to hurl herself in the spotlight.