Is This the World's Saddest Indiegogo Campaign? Shane Dixon Kavanaugh - Vocativ
go to original August 20, 2014

Bob Lyons and Princess (Indiegogo)

Bob Lyons is in failing health. His only true friend is a cat with whom he shares a squalid single room without furniture in Tijuana, Mexico. After years of begging on the streets, the ailing American expatriate is feeling pretty tired. But last week, he had an idea that gave him hope.

Inspired by the Kickstarter user who recently raised more than $55,000 to make potato salad, Lyons has decided to take his panhandling digital and launch his own crowdfunding campaign. “Old Man and Cat Need a Place to Call Home” went live on Indiegogo on Aug. 14 with the goal of raising $500 to buy a broken down camper van for him and his feline companion to call home. So far, it’s turning out to be one of the saddest crowdfunding campaigns of all time.

Despite multiple pleas on Facebook, the 60-year-old, known affectionately as “Tio Bob,” has yet to raise a single penny from any of his 441 so-called friends on social media - or the rest of the world, for that matter. It’s been a bit of a bummer for Uncle Bob.

“The only friend and family I have is my 9-year-old American bobtail,” says Lyons over email from Tijuana. “My cat is a male. But when he was a kitten, I thought he was a female. So I named him Princess.”

To be fair, Lyons’ hard-luck story is largely a self-imposed one. The New York state native says he has few regrets after moving to Tijuana 23 years ago for “political” reasons. “Every day that I have been alive, the United States of America has been at war with some country with not one day of peace,” he says. “And I cannot support or live in a country like that.”

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