07/06/2021
Michigan Update:
$2,681,447...
Recently my wife, Philippa Kaye, and I donated to a fund that enabled us to purchase and eliminate all of the long term medical debt (that we could find) for the entire city of Highland Park, Michgan, and parts of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan.
$1,003,786:
This one time purchase of $1,003,786 of medical debt benefits 1,407 Highland Park residents, just over 13% of the population of the city.
Look for a yellow envelope in the mail. You no longer owe this money. It’s paid. Keep the letter for your records - it’s the proof of purchase.
$1,677,661:
Our donation was also able to eliminate an additional $1,677,661 of medical debt in other parts of Wayne County, equaling approximately 10% of the Wayne County debt that we and our partner could find.
Why did we do this? There are two reasons:
Running an arts organization is not a lucrative career choice but we’ve recently been a bit lucky. Since I’ve been crushed by debt before and know it feels terrible, and because our family has had health issues that are thankfully behind us, we understood the benefits of doing this.
Also, I served on an advisory board for the Highland Park School Board and through that experience I was able to learn so much about the educational - and health - needs in the community. We saw a way to help and took it.
Health and education and debt are all linked. Taking some of the pressure off one helps the others.
A special thank you to the Community Foundation for South East Michigan and RIP Medical Debt. Without both of these organizations we wouldn’t have been able to do this.
Robert Elmes and Philippa Kaye
