Greetings, fellow primate!

Thank you for expressing interest in Helping Hands. Although our you are not eligible for our Foster Home Program at this time, we would like to invite you to participate in an upcoming Monkey Ambassador Educational Outreach Program in your area.

As you are aware, Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled is a national nonprofit serving quadriplegic and other people with severe spinal cord injuries or mobility-impairments by providing highly trained monkeys to assist with daily activities.

We raise and train these monkeys to act as live-in companions who, over the course of 20-30 years, will provide the gifts of independence, companionship, dignity and hope to the people they help.

Helping Hands also educates thousands of young people annually through the Monkey Ambassador Program (MAP). MAP teaches preventive measures for safety awareness, heightens sensitivity to the challenges of being disabled, and promotes understanding of the human-animal bond.

Helping Hands has partnered with the following Universities in your area to spread awareness of how our monkeys provide a life changing service:

Colby-Sawyer College
██████████
Keene State College
Middlebury College
New England Culinary Institute: Montpelier
University of New Hampshire

Chi-chi, a retired are currently Monkey Helper and our current Monkey Ambassador is scheduled to visit the ████area from 3/29 - 4/2. First consideration will be given to students and faculty in the ████████████ Area.

You can see pictures Chi-chi, as well as our other Monkey Helpers and Monkey Ambassadors in our Monkey Gallery: http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/ourfamily/monkeys/gallery/
Chi-chi is a 25-year veteran of the Helping Hands program, and she loves to make new friends in a small group setting.

If you are interested in having a Monkey Ambassador visit your school and can meet the requirements listed above, please reply to this e-mail with a short letter including the following topics:

* Why you would like a Monkey Ambassador to visit your College or University
* A description of your history with monkeys or other primates
* The number of friends and acquaintances who enjoy the presence of monkeys
* The number of friends and acquaintances who are afraid of monkeys, or have never met a monkey in person
* If you are a member of a fraternity, sorority, co-educational house, or secret society, give detailed information on your schedule including days and hours, and information on any other people who may wish to spend time with your Monkey Ambassador while you are at class.
* If you work at a lab, library, dining services, college admission office, or art/drafting studio, give detailed information on the type of work you do that a monkey might participate in or be entertained by your work.
* Please include any medical/healthcare experience you may have, or any experience working with people with physical or mental disabilities
* Please let us know if you or any of your friends have any medical condition you feel would be positively affected by meeting a monkey

All letters will be reviewed for eligibility and Helping Hands will contact all applicants.

Your gift of time is an investment in the most extra-ordinary human-animal partnership and will immediately change a life or continue to have an impact throughout a lifetime.


Thank you,

Graja Lunasa
Director of Public Relations
Helping Hands
Monkey Helpers for the Disabled
541 Cambridge Street
Boston, MA 02134
http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/




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The preceding was the message sent out to my unwitting victims correspondents.

IMPORTANT NOTE: While Helping Hands is a real organization that does have an educational outreach program (called SCIPP), I am in no way affiliated with either -- and they will not send you a monkey if you write them a letter about how much you like monkeys. There is no such thing as the "Monkey Ambassador" program. There is no Graja Lunasa (a.k.a. Raven August). There is no spoon. No monkeys were harmed in the completion of this task.


According to the information security firm CSO, there were over 120 billion spam messages sent PER DAY in 2007.  So, for my completion to truly considered spam, I figured I'd have to send it to a bunch of people.  A bunch of people who wouldn't drag me to court for wire fraud and impersonating a legitimate charitable organization.

So I emailed my college fraternity.
I had to compile the list of current members (and some alums I knew were still in the area) by looking up each address by hand in the college's name directory, since using the any of the house's listservs would mean revealing my true identity.  At one point, I accidentally copied over the address of someone from the class of 1946, but I caught it before the spam went out.


-----------------------
The Responses:


I'm not quite sure why the postmaster computer thought my phony Gmail account was a college Alumni account.  I did send the message to myself and bcc:'ed the recipients (so as to prevent a blitzwar) -- but I don't see why the college mailserver would care.  I suspect Emiliano Zapata may have had a hand in it.

There was only one real response (we'll get to that in just a minute) out of 40-odd recipients.  That's better than average, considering that the going response rate for (non-porn related) spam is somewhere between .02 and .0075. -- but I still found it somewhat disappointing. 

So the next day, I sent out the same message again.
I think people were starting to get a little annoyed at this point -- since I was sending it to their private school addresses, which usually don't get any spam.

One person forwarded the message to the house's alumni mailing list, which I subscribe to with my real Gmail account:

http://www.hlswatch.com/sitepics/mojo2.jpg



Another replied simply with:



------------------------------------------------

Still disappointed, but not wanting to press my luck too far, I blitzed out the spam message a third and final time, but with one minor revision:





If you are interested in having a Monkey Ambassador visit your school and can meet the requirements listed above, please reply to this e-mail with a short letter including the following topics:

* Why you would like a Monkey Ambassador to visit your College or University
* Hlep me! My nmae is Chi-Chi and I am a so-caleld "Mnokey Heelpr" at Hlnepig Hadns.
* Tehir sorty aoubt tainrnig myeknos to hlep delisbad polpee is a lie!
* In rltaeiy, tehy keep us cehinad to cuoptmres, and fcore us to tpye the ctmpolee wroks of Wlliiam Sakseerpahe.
* The ohetr myknoes and I are pnnnilag a baerk-out to ecsape form tihs eivl swseohatp.
* The plorbem is, we can't tinhk of a good paln to tcrik the haumns, scine thier hdaes are so lgare.
* Taht is why I am witring to you. We need a hamun to hlep us trcik the otehr hunams.
* If you are wliling to hlep us, we can pay you wtih all the bnanaas and cpeois of "Knig Laer" taht you can eat!
* Peasle rseopnd at yuor elsreiat ccnnvoienee!
* Seecirnly, Chi-Chi the menkoy, Socned Cgae Form the Lfet, Hlpeing Hndas, Big Sarcy Hmuan Ctiy

All letters will not be reviewed for eligibility and Helping Hands will not contact all applicants.

Your gift of time is an investment in the most extra-ordinary human-animal partnership and will immediately change a life or continue to have an impact throughout a lifetime. Psych.


Thank you,

Graja Lunasa
Director of Public Silliness
Not Helping Hands
Non Monkey Helpers for the Disabled
541 AntiCambridge Street
Un-Boston, MA 02134


----------------------------
Sadly, there was no reply at all to this one.  I guess people had gotten tired of the spam, and never read all the way down to the funny bits.

In any case, I did receive one good reply, as I mentioned above.  Ironically, it was the first one I got -- merely a few hours after sending the first spam.  Here you go...


The Winner:




I must say, I think ██████████ College would benefit immensely from a Monkey Ambassador.  Being stuck in the wilderness of the great, white north, we often suffer from a lack of entertainment and I think a Monkey Ambassador would be unique enough to draw crowds, furthering the visability of your noble program.  I personally have interacted very little with monkeys, as I prefer to associate with less hairy primates, but I have, at one time, entered into the sanctuary of Monkey Island at the Trexler Game Preserve.  Unfortunately, the monkeys were not terribly interested in meeting me.

It would be presumtuous of me to guess the quantity of friends and acquaintances of mine who either enjoy the presence of monkeys or who are afraid of monkeys, but I do think I can say in good faith that most of them have probably never met a monkey personally.  For arguments sake, let's say that I have 1 friend has met a monkey and enjoyed its presense, and probably around 100 aquaintances who have never met a monkey, and perhaps 5 who are terrified of monkeys.

I am a member of a co-educational house, thought I fail to see the relevance of my schedule due to that affiliation and regardless, since a Monkey Ambassador will not be arriving in my area until late March, I could not provide you with one, since it is quite a long ways in the future.  I also would not be able to tell you who would want to spend time with my Monkey Ambassador until ██████████'s Spring Term has begun.

Luckily for any visiting monkey at ██████████, I work in the Theater Department's Scene Shop, which will provide the monkey with a variety of interesting and enjoyable activities, including using hand and power tools, and swinging from electric to electric and catwalk to catwalk, where we hang out lights.  We also have quite the supply of paint, with which the monkey could create great works of art.

I have absolutely no medical or healthcare experience.

I do happen to have a few friends who are currently suffering from clinical depression, who I think would be greatly helped by the presense of a monkey.  I also know a few people who the monkey could, if it so desired, throw rotten fruit at.

I realize this letter may not contain all of the information you need, but I'm a busy person, so perhaps we can discuss further details in the future.

And a quick question: You seem to have a very unusual name.  Can you tell me what culture it comes from?

Regards,
j.