Pink and purple portable potties have a purpose
From Daily Comet, by Nate Monroe:
THIBODAUX, LA — If you wake up and find a portable toilet sitting in the middle of your front yard, don't worry. You are not going crazy.
There will be a set of instructions attached to one of the sides telling you how to get rid of it.
“I was kind of leery about the idea,” said Zebulun Domangue, a Thibodaux resident and Relay for Life team captain. “Either people will like it or they'll want nothing to do with it.”
Domangue, 27, is raising money for Relay for Life, an annual fundraising drive for the American Cancer Society. Teams of local volunteers will raise money until the April 8 event at Nicholls State University.
Domangue said the idea of using portable toilets to encourage donations came from a friend who told him that similar methods were previously used to raise money. McDonald Sanitation Service in Thibodaux donated two portable toilets for Domangue to use for the fundraiser. Domangue, helped by his wife Kristi and his 4-year-old daughter Carly, painted one pink and the other purple — signature colors of the Relay for Life fundraising drive.
Domangue, a maintenance worker at Thibodaux Regional Medical Center, said he began by putting portable toilets at doctors' houses around the city. Attached to the toilets is a set of instructions on how to make it disappear.
For a donation of any amount, Domangue will tow the toilet off your lawn. A $50 donation will remove the toilet and give you the choice of selecting the next recipient. A $70 donation will additionally give you an “insurance policy” guaranteeing that no one can send the portable toilet back to your lawn.
“At first, I thought either I'll get shot or thrown in jail,” he said. “But everyone has been good sports.”
He deposits the toilets either late at night or during the day when most people are at work. After hitting doctors' yards, the circle of would-be victims has grown larger.
“It was early in the morning when I saw it,” said Thibodaux Mayor Tommy Eschete, who had a portable toilet deposited in his yard a few weeks ago. “I asked my wife, ‘why do we have a pink toilet in our yard?'”
Eschete made a donation and sent the toilet to City Judge Mark Chiasson.
So far, 77 people have had toilets removed from their yards. Domangue had raised $9,340 as of late last week, just shy of his $10,000 goal. He said he hopes to far exceed that goal by April.
“It's a great way to raise money,” Eschete said.
Domangue does not have cancer, but he endured a number of health problems in his life that inspired him to raise money for people suffering from life-threatening ailments.
When he was 3, Domangue's mother took him to the doctor for a runny nose. The doctor found that his nose was filled with spinal fluid. That resulted in a diagnosis of meningitis, a potentially lethal inflammation of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.
He recovered after extensive medical care.
Five years ago, he was back in the hospital after blood clots were found in his brain.
“I shouldn't have lived through either event,” he said. “I have a purpose in life.”
He said those struggles inspired him.
“I can put myself in their shoes,” he said of those who battle cancer. “Do what you can. Do what's right, because sooner or later it's going to come back to you.”
For information or to donate, e-mail relayforlife.zebulun@gmail.com or visit www.relayforlife.org org.
