by Ryan Corrigan
When I first heard that Charlie passed away, I immediately began to pray about a long-term financial strategy for the Criniere family. What will Megan do to generate income for the next 20 years? Megan and I have spent many hours talking through all kinds of different ideas. We have prayed fervently, and we are very, very excited to announce that we are launching a subscription option to charliestrust.com to help fund the Criniere family going forward.
The subscription will allow people to have access to all the exclusive blogs and videos that we will be putting together to help us build momentum to write a book about Charlie's life! Yes! Yes! Yes! We are going to help Megan put together a book about Charlie's Life!!!!
Charlie had an absolutely crazy childhood growing up on the streets of Albany Park, Chicago as a well-known graffiti artist, and his story of going from a high school dropout to a high school teacher is absolutely compelling! Jesus Christ massively changed Charlie's life, and his story needs to be told.
Two days before Charlie passed away, he was invited to start ministering to teens in the juvenile system. Charlie was once in the juvenile system and always wanted to give back, and we believe he still can! Once this book is done, we believe we can get it into juvenile centers all over the USA. This subscription will help us gather all the content into blogs and videos to get organized to write the book.
Please take a few moments and watch this video.
I have talked to so many people that feel the same way that I do. We want to ensure that Megan can continue homeschooling the kids while having everything she needs to meet their monthly budget. In the bible, James, the brother of Jesus, said that "pure, undefiled religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27). In the spirit of this verse, we have named the charliestrust.com membership "The James 1:27 membership," which is $12.70 per month. 100% of the subscription will go directly toward the Criniere family's needs.
The subscription will include:
Unscripted Interviews with Megan
Megan's devotional/inspirational blogs
Interviews with Eric Criniere about their Life in Chicago in the '80s and '90s
and other things as we think of them :)
No, this subscription won't entertain you like Netflix. No, Megan is not going to write every day. No, this blog isn't going to help you get rich. But you will be inspired to live your life as Charlie did ... following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. And you will get to fund a widow raising nine kids!
Also, by subscribing, you'll be supporting Megan as she ventures to write this book about Charlie!
Megan believes God will use Charlie's story in tremendous ways, and we know that she will come through this with a powerful voice that will impact the next generation. To be frank, She is not used to being in the public eye, but she is very excited about the potential of being able to create content to brag about the faithfulness of God!
Since this big family was living off a public school teachers salary and had no long-term assets, many have asked about the Criniere's financial situation, so here is a summary:
They have received about $250k in donations
They received $20k in life insurance through the public schools
Their $150k mortgage was paid off (by a stranger!?!)
Their cars were paid off
$150k of home renovations have been pledged by 20 different construction companies
$270k seems like a lot of money, but that won't last very long with a big family and a small income. Thankfully Megan has people around her that are helping her with a long-term financial plan. The plan right now is to put the $270k into long-term savings/investments and increase her income through the website subscriptions to meet her monthly budget.
Here is a breakdown of their monthly budget:
Description | Monthly Budget |
Mortgage | 0 |
Car payments | 0 |
Property Taxes | 300 |
Utilities | Phone | Internet | 940 |
Groceries | 1500 |
Health Insurance | 1200 |
Home and Car Insurance | 450 |
Kids Sports Fees/Activities | 200 |
Car Maintenance/Gas | 400 |
Homeschool Costs | 100 |
Life Insurance | 75 |
Household | Clothing | Misc. | 1400 |
Total Monthly Budget Needed | $6565 |
| |
Current Monthly Income | Amount |
Monthly Pension from public schools | 2,050 |
Monthly Donations Pledged | 1,500 |
Income raised through Grace Point Church | 1,000 |
Current Total Monthly Income | $4,550 |
Monthly Deficit | $2015 |
| |
Number of subscriptions needed | 170+ |
Let's get the Crinieres fully funded! Subscribe and see if you can get five others to do the same! We only need 170 people to subscribe to get them fully funded.
There is no budget yet for the cost of producing this book but if we can get enough subscriptions this will do wonders to get the ball rolling!
If you would like to fund a specific monthly budget item and see some of their other financial goals, you can view those here.
Please share one of these videos on your social media, and let's get the word out! There are a couple of 1-minute options as well as a 4.5-minute option.
- Ryan Corrigan