Brad Paisley Competes on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for The Store

Fundraising is mostly asking, and then waiting to hear back.

The most recent check we got this month came from a game show question about snakes.

Here’s the chain of events, and I promise I’m not making it up.

Our co-founder Brad Paisley went on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on August 5, playing for The Store. Clayton Kershaw sat beside him, playing for Kershaw’s Challenge.

Brad was psyched. He’s watched the show since the Regis days.

They made it all the way to the question that would double their money.

It was about ophidiophobia.

The fear of snakes.

Which movie, the question asked, would most upset someone who has it?

They used their phone-a-friend and called Tim Gerst.

Tim knew it cold because he’s afraid of snakes himself. Then, on national television, he mentioned that Brad had once shown him a rattlesnake.

Snakes on a Plane.

Final answer.

Correct.

$125,000 of what they won came to The Store.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have a category for this.

I’ve spent fifteen plus years learning how nonprofit revenue works. Grants. Appeals. Corporate partners. A capital campaign. The slow, patient work of asking people for help and then waiting to hear back.

There is no line in our budget for a friend’s snake phobia.

But money doesn’t know how it got here.

It becomes produce and milk and protein on our shelves.

It becomes a mother pushing a cart down an aisle, choosing what her own family will actually eat this week.

It becomes groceries with dignity for our neighbors in Middle Tennessee.

Somebody’s fear of snakes is going to help feed our neighbors for months.

I’m grateful for Brad, for one very well-timed phone-a-friend, and for all the unexpected ways people show up for this work.

Sometimes support comes after months of careful conversations.

And sometimes, apparently, it comes from Snakes on a Plane.

You really can’t make this stuff up.