There was too much to just write about, so Doug and I made a video and we invite anyone to help us understand how Pink Cross Foundation’s tax returns break down in a reasonable way. Why does it matter? If someone came to my work and told me that my life wasn’t completely right, that my job was wrong, gave me a gift bag and told me they loved me and would help me change my life, and I believed them and gave up my life, walked away from my job, my income and everything I know, lent my face and name to their cause and ended up with only some makeup, candles, a book about spirituality and a contract that I’d signed accepting that I might not be able to get all the help I need, and pretty much no way of re-entering the industry I’d just renounced, I’d wonder what was going on with these people and their organization when they make a lot in donations and not much seems to go towards helping people.
Forget the speculation. Doug walks through the tax returns available on Pink Cross Foundation’s site. Go to www.thepinkcross.org, under “PinkAbout” click on “Financial Reports” and you can download the pdf’s. They are a non-profit organization, so their records must be made public. The pdf’s used to redirect to Shelley Lubben’s personal website, but since my post about it on my blog, the url’s have been changed. Maybe more will change as a result of our research, and for the better, because that is the best result, always.
There is nothing glamorous about helping sex workers. No amount of lipstick, glitz and gloss can replace human affection. You either help or you don’t, and since Shelley Lubben’s website and Pink Cross Foundation’s website begs everyone who looks at it to “Get the facts,” that’s what I’m doing, but I’m not uncovering facts in their statistics or anything akin to help in their financial records and I desperately want to know why I’m being told to get the facts and am being lied to. I don’t understand it.
It’s heartbreaking. Sex workers aren’t exploited enough by the mainstream media through shame for being who they are and being human and loving attention and sex and having fun, but then someone who used to be a sex worker who claims to know and love them comes into their camp and further exploits them through misinformation. How is this helpful? Someone please tell me, because I can’t figure it out.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC3WUkjR8Mg
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGg4r5MZ9kE
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtr3Bipw2M
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuQHMhfUS5c&feature=related
13 Responses
[New Post] Pink Cross Foundation Tax Return Breakdown, The Video – via #twitoaster http://www.mikesouth.com/uncategorized/p…
Thank you, DB.
Finally got to watch this….nice job.
and not unexpected, these so called charities are often little more than scams with less than 10% of donations actually going to help anyone.
Good video! 😛
I call for the hubby to do more videos. Kudos to both of you good job.
I second that! Thank you very much. Doug is quite the commentator/analyst/cutie pie. (lol) If I can get him to do more of these, I will. If not, I’ll do it myself, but I can definitely say that he is probably much better at it.
And just for the record… No, I did not cure Shelley Lubben’s Herpes!!!
And I didn’t GIVE it to her!!!!
To be honest Satan, I had assumed SHE was the one that gave it to YOU…not the other way around.
Julie… OMG… this was the best you’ve done yet. I know I’ve been remiss in my comments to your posts. Life has been busy lately. And furthermore, I’m not going to fuck with you about bright lights, bad audio, and the “rule of thirds” principle. The content of this post is absolutely awesome. In my humble opinion, Doug would make a great talk show host/commentator.
Doug, the last few minutes prove to me that you’re a real man (Mike, issue him a card). Kudos to you, brother. I’d be honored to meet you, and hope we will sometime soon.
Julie, you keep em coming, dear.
Hunter
When are you going to look inot AIM’s tax returns? They’re bringing in about $2,000,000.oo annualy.
Aside from paying their lab about 1.5 mil a year, and paying themselves,,,what do the performers get for all of their ‘donations?’
It is the talent who FUND AIM Healthcare…..It is the producers who benefit from AIM by not paying the medical expenses that are their legal responsibility.
How can anyone say that the talent benefit from AIM,,,,,they are the ones who fund AIM. The talent get nothing from AIM that they dont PAY for,,,how is that a charity that benefits performers?
My issues with AIM are WELL documented on this site. They have not gone without scrutiny by me.
Thank you, Hunter! Doug says, “Thank you,” too! Glad you liked it. 🙂
Honestly, Milton, I’m late in the game, I admit. I only just “returned to the industry” last year, as a writer for my blog and Mike’s, and didn’t even do my first interviews ever until late in the year. Plus, I, personally, never had a problem with AIM, but my perspective is one-sided.
When I did my first few scenes in 1998, I went to a clinic in North Hollywood. It cost me just over $200.00 to get the blood test I needed to show that I did not have STD’s or HIV, and the turnaround was three days. The doctor was a creep. That is to say, he was really creepy, but that’s where I was suggested to go so that’s where I went for three or four more visits.
By the time AIM became the place to go to, at half the price and with friendlier staff – constantly surrounded by fellow performers and not strange people looking at me funny, including the people who took my blood – I was happy to use AIM. I felt safe there and I never “donated” beyond paying for my blood tests.
It seems that whatever is afoul at AIM, someone else is already looking into it. They’re being sued and everyone is against the organization. I have seen the large number on the tax return, actually, but serving as many people as they do yearly, plus the upkeep and rent and paying for medical supplies… that’s expensive, and the number seemed lower than my mind would have projected about running a facility like that, but I’m no expert, again, that’s just my initial thought process about it. Certified doctors charge as much as they do mostly because of the cost of their equipment and keeping everything sterile and in working order, disposing of the waste properly, etc… I asked Sharon for an interview, but I probably waited too late because now she is probably too busy and I’m sure her lawyers would advice her not to do any kind of interview right now.
Shelley Lubben, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to give much of anything of actual worth to anyone. I got her “gift box” for Christmas, although it would seem to me that wasting gifts on someone that has already expressed some suspicion about your motives is a waste of donated funds. It’s a Girl Thing “Snob” Lip Gloss, Guess perfume, a sequined stocking, pink bracelet, a Pink Cross T-shirt, a dvd about her life, candles and a $20.00 Bible I will never use – all items I wouldn’t even use as a sixteen-year-old, let alone at thirty-five years of age – seems better left on a counter somewhere and that money given to a person who needs to pay for electricity. Shipping alone was over $10.00. I have gotten out of the industry with nowhere to turn to and it is near impossible to do if you don’t have help, or someone with money to marry so you don’t have to worry about finding a job. Shelley’s a member of the latter, and I’m afraid that with only qualifications that limit her ability to do anything but hand out money and talk about “Christ”, she’s barely qualified to do that. Putting a cap on $5,000.00 worth of help per person per year so you don’t have to report it is hardly help (although I have no proof of that, though I did get it from a reliable source). She uses the talent’s name and likeness to promote her cause, but what do they actually get in return? Her entire “Get the facts” organization is built on “God”, and “God” is not a fact, and neither are the “facts” she spreads. There’s just too much to not question and look at.
Mike’s right. He and others question AIM relentlessly, and without being talent, without having even used their facilities in over five years, and without an interview, I have no perspective. I’ll do some reading, but it seems that so many are and have already taken up that mantle. However, not very many are questioning Shelley. She’s got a banner on another adult site and she’s allowed to set up booths from within trade shows, the few yearly places where talent and fans are supposed to feel like they can relax and bond about the business. It’s just too weird to me.