You may recall that at the end of September, it was announced that Derrek Lee was forming Project 3000, an organization dedicated toward fighting Leber's congenital amaurosis - the affliction that has rendered Lee's young daughter partially blind.

At GROTA, we put a tremendous value in Derrek Lee. He's the best player the Cubs have, and based on 2005, he's one of the best I've seen in my lifetime. That said, we want to help his cause. So, if you look over to the right of this post, you will see an image. In fact, I will place it in this topic as well:

If you click on that link, it will take you to a Goat Riders Paypal page. We will be accepting donations into January. On January 19th, we will be travelling to Chicago to attend the 22nd Annual Cubs Convention (assuming we can get tickets, and even if we can't we'll still get the money to Derrek or somebody else affiliated with the Cubs or Project 3000 at that time.)

We will present Derrek with a check for all the money you have donated to his cause. We will also give Project 3000 a list of your contact information so they can notarize that you donated the money and you can write it off on your taxes. As mentioned earlier, should Derrek not attend the Convention this year - and we fully expect that he will - we will arrange to hand the check over to another Cub or representitive of Project 3000.

I have no idea how much money we can raise. It would be great if we could raise at least $3,000 (because it's Project 3000, of course), and with a little dedication, maybe we'll be able to do even better than that.

If you would like to make a donation but do not own a Paypal account, just drop us an EMail at riders @ goatriders.org and we will make arrangements with you. Make sure to title your EMail "Project 3000."

Please spread the word. Tell your friends and family. Ask them to tell their friends and family. We want as many people to know about this as possible.

As angry as we have sometimes been at how little the Cubs organization has given back to the fans, nobody can say that Derrek Lee has held back anything. He truly is a class act and an amazing player, and this might be our one opportunity to give him something beyond the cheers that he hears at Wrigley Field.

This is your chance to contribute. We hope to see a lot of our readers give something, even if it's only a couple of dollars. We'll fill you in more on this in the near future. There will be more to announce.