ATTN: iCommunity – @Bababooey13, the main themer behind “BUUF4″ needs your help.

We here at MyGreatiPhone don’t normally do these kinds of things, but being that we consider ourselves a rather large part of the iCommunity, when we see one of our own who needs help, we usually try any way we can, behind the scenes, to assist however possible. Usually, it is more in the field of “information”, such as spending hours upon hours helping someone fix their problems with their iDevice, or helping to give someone an idea and explain what the benefits of jailbreaking are, etc. Often times it also happens to be a small startup company who has a product that they need to generate buzz about, so we will do a review of some kind to help them out. There have been many of these situations, and especially on twitter, we are known to try to take a personal approach to these types of situations. And speaking of twitter, this is where we came across a rather touching display of a friend of ours who was flat out asking for help.

Many of you may know him. He is @Bababooey13 on twitter, the creator of the wildly popular Cydia Theme “BUUF4”. He has through his constant efforts provided the community with one of the most original and unique themes out there for the iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4, and I believe the iPad as well. He has given constant updates, and even sent out clay models of real-life interpretations of the BUUF icons to some of his followers who requested it for only the price of shipping. You can take a look at some of the BUUF4 theme by viewing some screenshots below, as well as some photos of the clay figurines Eric has designed for his followers: This guy is even so dedicated that he got a tattoo of his BUUF4 logo!

We know him as Eric, a slightly eccentric guy who always manages to make us laugh and keep us entertained by his antics, and through some circumstances as of late, he needs help – and not surprisingly, it isn’t for him – it’s for his mother. You see, Eric is a working electrician, who has had some seriously bad luck lately professionally and has come down through hard times. He has lead a very interesting life with a lot of pitfalls, rockbottoms, resurrections and the resuscitation of hope. Time and time again, he has proven that the human will to succeed and to be a better person than he was yesterday is an endearing trait of his, and recently, he has taken to twitter to ask for our (the iCommunity’s) help. And we are happy to comply.

Through conversations I have had with him privately and in confidence, I know that his mom is in a situation where for a very long extended period of time, she has had to go without time and time again because of the circumstances of life. While it is not my story to tell, and because I don’t want to betray his trust, the long story shortened is that she has never had any current piece of technology, and with Eric recently relocating, and with the present, old-and-awful technology she has, he can’t even manage a video call with her. So, using this mentality, he has started a fundraiser to gather enough money to just buy and ship her an iPad 2 – not because it is the “newest and greatest”, but because it is the only iteration of the device that comes with a camera capable of using the “FaceTime” feature. He has set a goal of $600, and multiple members from the MyGreatiPhone team, including myself, have already donated. This is to help out a woman who has dedicated her life to sacrificing things she may have wanted so that others would have what they wanted, or so that others could be happy. I personally see a lot of similarities between his mother and my own, and I’m sure that you all know someone like that who you wished you could have helped. As I said, most of us have already donated.

But that’s not enough.

We need more donations to help Eric’s mom out. He isn’t greedy. Neither are we. He only wants enough for the iPad 2, nothing more, nothing less. Had Eric decided to charge even a a minimal fee of $1 the re-design of the BUUF4 theme, he would have gotten this money a while ago. So, in an effort to reach out to all of you, the iCommunity, we are asking that take a second, and think about sending a donation to Eric, @Bababooey13, to help him not only do something great and inspiring for his mom, but to give them the ability to keep in contact in Apple style, with the simplicity-of-use of an iPad and FaceTime.  Send whatever you can. Even $1 will help tremendously if enough of you do it. Think about it like this: It is the same price as buying an App from the AppStore. Less than your morning cup of coffee. And really, how often can you say that you feel really good about yourself by helping out a fellow human being simply by dropping a dollar of your hard earned cash?

Not very often.

Also worth mentioning, Eric has said that he will be doing something special for the person who donates the largest amount, and our very own @Nazaroth, editor-in-chief here at MyGreatiPhone and developer of the popular “SIGnify” tweak in Cydia (an app that allows you to use HTML signatures for your e-Mail in iOS iDevices) has agreed to randomly select 10 donators at the completion of the fundraiser to give “SIGnify” to, with the winners being announced by @Bababooey13 himself. So yes, there are incentives, but the true incentive should be just to help a guy out who truly needs it. Take a second, and seriously consider it, and keep your eyes posted here for your normal, daily does of iDevice news. We will keep you updated as to how the fundraiser goes. For those interested in donating, you can do so directly through Paypal, by donating to: ericelm77@gmail.com.

And for those interested in taking a look at the facebook fundraising site he has set up, you can view all that information here:

http://apps.facebook.com/fundrazr/activity/c11d6de77b7141e19b87a748cc07a9dc

Please remember, when sending your donations through Paypal, include a little bit extra so that once Paypal takes out their fees, there will still be at least a full, solid dollar left over. Just sayin’.