Can I use your Avatar? I need Forty Million of them.....

I am exploring the idea of creating several banners displaying Forty Million Avatars to represent the Forty Million uninsured in this country... This will not be an easy task, and I will definitely need some help. first off, I will need at least 25,000 (I will then repeat until 40M) Avatars that I can use - once I gather them up, I will shrink them to 1/8" x 1/8" in size. At this size I could fit about 2,500 per 1" x 3 feet. That means I could fit 30,000 per linear foot (3 foot wide banner. This means I will need about 1,300 feet of banner or about (43) thirty foot long by 3 foot wide banners, solidly filled with 1/8 x 1/8" Avatars. Each Avatar representing just one of the Forty Million without health insurance. I will need to make the banners water proof. I am planning on taking a few weeks off work and traveling to Washington, Waco and several other key sights including a few corporate headquarters. This will be a large display that will require lots of room, so I will need to choose the locations wisely. This display should draw lots of local and national media attention, so I would like to travel with an expert on the subject, which I am not. I don't know where I will get the funds, but I feel inspired, and I think I can make it happen with lots of help. I have been thinking this over for a couple days, I am not sure if I am crazy or the opposite to even think of this. Either way, I thought I would bounce the idea off of the DU community first, to see what you think... and to get your permission to use your Avatar as well. Here are a few facts that inspired me:

From the census bureau:

Forty-seven million people - 15.8 percent of the population - are now uninsured, up from 44.8 million, or 15.3 percent, in 2005.

One in nine children - 11.7 percent - lacks insurance. In 2005, 8.0 million, or 10.9 percent, had no health-care coverage.

Thank You

and good luck with the project.

Sid

as I am uninsured.

Scared to see a doc.

Still my wife might loose hers at the end of the year so....

I hope to remedy that soon, though.

Please feel free to use mine.

Same avatar as yours, but feel free...

one for each of the uninsured in this household.

:hug:

....the 1/8" squares will be too hard to see, so I thought I would throw in some 1/4" Avatars as well... either way, I will still need to provide magnifying glasses to view....

Here's some organizations that might be willing to help/advocate, etc:

Physicians for a National Health Plan
http://www.pnhp.org/

No Free Lunch; advocates making prescriptions affordable by eliminating the slimy marketing tactics of Big Pharma, also very involved in advocating health care for all:
http://www.nofreelunch.org/index.htm

American Medical Students Association; one of their biggest agendas is a national health care plan.
http://www.amsa.org/

All are very active in the campaign to make health care accessible to all.

I have insulin-dependent diabetes and although we have "good" insurance,it comes woefully short in covering my expenses.

If there's some other ways we can help, let us know. BTW--absolutely use my avatar if there are no copyright restrictions. I'll be happy to create a diabetes specific one as well if you'd like.

I'd love to share it! :thumbsup:

I know what it feels like to be uninsured and scared that it was gonna bite me in the ass. Good luck on your project!

And here's some sites where you can get more avatars:

http://www.avatarity.com/
http://avatars.jurko.net/
http://www.avatarsdb.com/

It's public domain courtesy of DU anyway, so no problem. You can also have any of these you might find useful (if you can figure out a way to copy and paste them onto your computer).


Best,

wp

1/8" x 1/8" is really tiny! It might not matter if you actually have an avatar in the box or not. Cool idea, and the use of my avatar in my sig is hereby granted to this project (yes it is my service mark)

-Hoot

since I have two kids in their 20s with no health insurance.