Hi.

Very many of you obviously know of the allegations about me and TLP. Very many of you have already determined I’m guilty for misusing TLP’s funds. Here are details regarding the issue.

TLP was never a charity and I never claimed it was. I attempted to register TLP as a 501© organization in January, with the help of an LGBT center in southern California I worked alongside for a few weeks, but the process would have taken a lot of time (according to the lawyers they sent me to) that I didn’t think I had. No, you aren’t going to find TLP as a registered charity because it never became one and it was never intended to become one. The goal was to assist a few hundred trans people in need. It is simply a ‘cause.’

I don’t know how PayPal was thrown into the mix, but monetary donations were made through the website Go Fund Me. Go Fund Me takes away 7.9% of donations as well as $0.30 per donation. In the end, there was approximately $16,000. There was also a PayPal donation button on TLP’s blog, but after PayPal’s 2.9% cut as well as $0.30 per donation, only approximately $200.00 was received. Now you have to understand how much everything cost. 

We originally used U.P.S. to ship packages for the first month but their services were too expensive. To send our first mass shipment of 9 packages cost over $120.00. We switched to U.S.P.S. in February and began using their flat rate boxes. To send a “small” box with make-up or binders as the only contents is $5.25. To include the mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow, and lipstick we offered, that cost approximately $7.00. (That depends on whether they want liquid eyeliner vs pencil eyeliner or lip stick vs lip gloss, but the price only varies by $1.00 or $2.00.) To send only make-up totaled about $12.25. To include a binder cost $28.33. To send only a binder totaled $33.58. To send a “medium” box with clothes is $11.30. That’s assuming I already had the clothing they requested. If not, I would visit a store to purchase the items needed and leave them with a gift receipt. An example is provided below. That particular ensemble, including a blouse, skirt, and blazer, cost approximately $65.00. I had to do this often, specifically for trans men and once for a mother who requested clothes for her 7 year old, questioning child.

Clothes, wigs, bras, underwear, bra inserts, STPs, binders, make-up and more were purchased for recipients because we didn’t have either their size, their specific request (i.e., professional clothing), or any more in stock. I made my last purchase of binders from Underworks in bulk on April 13th. 30 binders in a variety of sizes and colors cost over $800.00.

Wigs were purchased from Amazon or my local beauty store for about $10.00-$20.00 each. Bras cost $11.99-$15.00 (depending on the size), bra inserts cost $5.99-$9.99 (depending on whether it’s foam or silicone), STPs cost $6.10, underwear cost $5.49, and so forth. 

I purchased a business mailbox from U.P.S. that people could send clothing donations to for $90.00 (not including the initial $15.00 set-up fee) for 3 months. It is why I closed clothing donations on April 30th. I opened the mailbox in February, clothing donations slowed down tremendously over the months, and I didn’t want to spend another $90 to keep the mailbox open for another 3 months only for the donations to continue slowing down. I also closed down the Go Fund Me page and removed the PayPal donation button from TLP’s blog on April 15th. I haven’t received monetary donations since.

My mother volunteered often. She assisted in driving me to stores for purchases, keeping records (including receipts), occasionally putting a package together, organization, and more. A prominent volunteer I had is my very good friend De’nae, who made a post addressing some of the situation and her role in the project. She stopped helping a few months ago due to personal matters she needed to attend to. There were two other volunteers but neither have blogs and I’m not releasing their names. (Some of you have sent messages to my family, friends, and even business associates regarding the project as well as other claims. I won’t subject them to potential harassment.) They also stopped volunteering due to personal matters they needed to attend to. I was essentially left by myself to continue working on the project, which I have been doing. I have continued to send packages to recipients. Admittedly, at a much slower pace than expected, but it is being done. The most recent shipment was made on June 4th. Afterwards, I was out of the state for most of the month, returning on July 3rd.

I have been using my house as the ‘operating base’ for the project since it began. The living room, kitchen, hallway, and my room are littered with boxes to the point where you have to maneuver your way around them. 

The storage bin peeking out from behind in the second picture is a 3 drawer Sterilite cart. I purchased 3 of those at Target for $49.99 each. Their purpose was to store clothes so I could clear my house of these boxes. De’nae and I separated clothes by size into these containers, hopefully making it easier to search for certain sizes for packages, and we filled those to the brim without even going through ¼th of the boxes I had in my home. 

On July 6th, I resorted to renting a storage unit for these boxes that will cost $46.55 a month. I have already begun moving boxes into the unit, but there are still over 50 boxes in my house waiting to be moved.

When the project initially started, I gave a handful of people my home address and there was honestly so little that I was able to even keep inventory of the clothing received. I was able to keep track of what was received, what was sent and who it was sent to. It was nice. As soon as I opened that U.P.S. mailbox, there were dozens of donations coming in weekly and it overwhelmed me. I wasn’t able to continue taking inventory of items I received, but I did track inventory for items purchased. Below is last month’s inventory for women’s items that were purchased by me.

Any items remaining in the “in stock” column are transferred to next months “start quantity” column. If I made purchases, I would mark it in another column. 

Some people are questioning where most of my income came from. Some people I stayed with in New York made a post about “over-spending.” (I didn’t read the post and I’m not exactly sure what that means.) I sell customizable NSFW pictures and videos. It started in mid-July of 2014 when I jokingly said I would send someone a picture of my butt for $50.00 and someone surprisingly offered to purchase it. I began to offer more ‘product’ and I made over $2,000.00 in as little as two weeks after starting. I have been selling content since then, using my blog to promote it, with the most recent purchase being 6 days ago. My primary income was performing sexual acts on camera for money. It paid for my bills, such as my phone bill, student loan payments, rent, credit card debt, and anything else I wanted, including trips to New York. Below is a screen shot of some of my PayPal account during that time frame. 

Those $100′s, $200′s, and $300′s were for videos I sold. The $40.00, $50.00, and $75.00 were for pictures I sold. It continues like that for months. This was on top of being paid monthly by Google Adsense for blogging and my hourly 9 to 5 job. (There are speculations about where I work that I’m not even going to bother to address.) I had my own income.

Despite the rumors circulating that question or say otherwise, I do attend school and I am working on getting my degree. Because of my schedule, I am only able to dedicate a single day out of the week to this project. I had a few volunteers, with De’nae and my mother being the most prominent, but they had other matters to ultimately attend to. Some suggested I should have hired help. I did think about it and I could have, but I’m not an employer. I’m a 20 year old who was in over their head. 

Thousands of people supported me and the project. Thousands of people placed their faith in me and I failed them. My intentions were honest but I was too idealistic, too unorganized, too unprepared, too short-handed, and too overwhelmed. There were so many expectations I needed to meet but there was simply no time, no space, and no help. There was so much I could have done differently. I simply didn’t expect TLP to become as big as it did so fast. It was a mistake on my part and I am sincerely sorry. 

Lastly, the balance of the bank account I created specifically for the project as of today.

The money raised through Go Fund Me was direct deposited into this bank account; a bank account completely separated from my own. The “5 days ago” is in reference to the last purchase I made using this account, which was to rent the storage unit mentioned earlier. The money remains intact, only being touched when I need to make a purchase related to the prpject. 

I understand if some donors remain freaked out about the idea of being scammed so I am willing to refund any donor who makes a request, as long as they can provide verification. Go Fund Me only accepts debit or credit cards I believe, so we will have to discuss the best option for refunding your donations if you donated through GFM, but I will gladly refund you. You can request a refund and send verification to theleelahproject@gmail.com. 

I will continue working on the project until I run out of recipients to send packages to or money to support the cause. Anything left over, whether it’s clothing or money, will be donated to the LGBT center I mentioned earlier. As De’nae mentioned in her own post, 

I am not going to continue blogging after this. At least, not like I used to. I am going to begin using my blog specifically for updates regarding the progress of TLP. I will post my purchases as I make them, shipments as I send them, and so forth. TLP will become completely transparent, as requested and as deserved. I am sincerely sorry for not doing so sooner.

I am not going to bother to address any of the other speculations so I’m sorry to disappoint some of you guys, but there is something else I would like to address.

The blog dedicated to “exposing” me, also the blog who began to circulate the claims, very conveniently forgot to mention that we exchanged e-mails in the first week of April, starting on April 1st. They accused me of misusing funds and requested receipts to show that I shipped items, specifically saying they didn’t want receipts for anything else because “it doesn’t help.” I spent the next few days sending multiple e-mails with evidence that contradicted the notion. The last e-mail I sent (pictured below) with evidence of shipments being made was sent on April 8th. They never responded back so I assumed they were satisfied with the evidence I provided, but I guess not.

I’m not sure what else there is to address regarding the issue so that is all.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for your support.