Loyal Readers, as Christmas approaches this week, I want to take some time to brag and highlight the efforts of this crazy little blogging community. Personally, I know that while I enjoy this time-consuming hobby, I’m most proud of using my platform that I somehow stumbled into to do some good.
Quite frankly, it’s peak Notre Dame, in my humble opinion.
First, we start with the fine gents at Notre Dame, Our Blogger. They decided to paywall all content this year, but in doing so, decided to donate all Patreon proceeds to a different South Bend Charity every month. In total, they raised $2,678 in 2020 with proceeds benefitting Black Lives matter South Bend, the St. Vincent De Paul Society, Dismas House of Indiana, and the South Bend Center for the Homeless.
The South Bend Center for the Homeless donation was done through the annual Christmas Giving charity drive done by the Rakes Report. As of this writing, Rakes has raised $11,223 with more to come once sales from his TeePublic merch finalize (and donations are still on-going!). 1/14/2021 Update: Rakes announced the final tally as $12,359.
Finally, I take the chance to brag on myself!
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I saw the immediate increase in food insecurity across the nation. With that in mind, and with March Madness getting cancelled, I ran a NCAA ’14 football sim tourney to drive money to Feeding America’s COVID-19 response fund. You helped me raise $1,769.69 (nice) in this effort.
Many of you know that I do Extra Life, but one event I’ve never gotten to take a part in was Extra Life United, which is a gathering of Extra Life gamers, which events that help raise money for our local hospitals. The event moved to a virtual format, allowing me to participate and raise money for the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Oklahoma City and their COVID-19 response fund. That week-long sprint raised $3,656.26.
And finally, there is my annual, year-long effort in raising money for the Blake Shelton Cancer Research Fund for the CHFOKC, Gamin’ 4 Aven. The reason why my Extra Life efforts focus on a hospital located both outside South Bend and Texas is due the namesake, Aven. He was the son of family friends and diagnosed with Leukemia. Despite fighting and putting it in remission, he passed due to complications with this horrible disease.
Perhaps I could raise more if I dug further in to Notre Dame or local ties, but I can think of no better way to continue to honor his memory by directly fighting against the disease that took him and support the hospital that gave him care. Clearly, many of you feel the same, helping me raise $13,251.45 year-to-date (donations still on-going, if we hit $15,000 by year-end, I wax my chest). Update 1/14/2021: I ended the 2020 campaign with $13,455.68 raised.
By my math, that’s $31,845.37 $33,185.63 raised year-to-date in 2020 (updated totals on 1/14/2021) by some silly bloggers on the internet (I removed $733 as NDOB donated that amount directly to Rakes’ Christmas Giving, so that’s already accounted for in his total). I couldn’t be more proud of the effort by everyone and, if there is an effort from an ND Blogger that I missed, no matter how small or large their platform, please let me know and I will be happy to add them!
Have a very Merry Christmas!
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.
First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.
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