Giving Back to the Community

Monday, April 17, 2017

As we ramp up convention season, not that it feels like it ever truly slowed down, I'm processing many event support requests. Each month, a handful of conventions note that they are supporting a charity or raising money to donate to a group. In 2015, we ran a spotlight blog on the Minnaepolis-St. Paul extraordinary fundraising efforts during SkalCon. The blog included photos of Venture-Captain (retired) Jon Dehning and Andrew Christian undergoing the clippers as an incentive for donations. If you missed it, you can see the blog here. Today felt like a great day to highlight some of our other charity events.

Last November, several groups hosted Extra Life events and donated funds to their local chapters. I attended the Extra Life II event in Spokane, Washington. There were also Extra Life events in Boise, Idaho and Cary, North Carolina. John Compton joined fellow Paizonians Jason Buhlman and Amanda Hamon-Kunz, as well as several members of the Dead Gentlemen/Zombie Orpheus Entertainment cadre in a marathon gaming event streamed on twitch. All told, we raised over $5,000 for the Extra Life Cause. Get ready for November 2017, because we will be back, this time coordinating our efforts on a larger scale as well as streaming another celebrity-studded game.

Players in the metro Boston area regularly support charitable causes. Venture Captains Ray Diaz and David Montgomery coordinate ongoing charity events through their weekly games. In March, they supported National Reading Month. Prior events benefited Somerville Homeless Coalition and the Woman's Bar Foundation. They also support charity conventions such as CaptainCon.

Supporting charity isn't limited to the US groups. In Great Britain, Wyrd Sisters Carol Tierney and Chris Brockley-Blatt run several conventions aimed at raising money for a variety of organizations. They support TOFS, Sarcoma UK, MS Society UK and other charities on an ongoing basis. They are responsible for 3XP Fall and 3XP Spring, as well as lending their talents to a slew of other events: ConTRAPtion, OddCon UK, Contingency, and PaizoCon UK. Other charitable events in Europe include GaelCon in Ireland, and CoNfUsIoN in Gouda.

The list below recognizes the charity events supported so far in 2017. These are not the only charity events occurring in 2017, and do not include events which occurred in 2016. A huge thank you to players, GMs, and volunteers who supported charity events in the past and those which plan to do so in the future!

• ShadowCon XXI—West Memphis, AR
• Aid Another Winter 2017—Philadelphia, PA
• Vermincon 2017—Vermillion, SD
• Con-Tingency 2017—Fordingbridge, UK
• CaptainCon 2017—Warwick, RI
• PurpleBunnyCon 2017—Murfreesboro, TN
• Game It Forward 2017—Springdale, AR
• GnomeCon 2017—Savannah, GA
• AZ PFS Child's Play Charity Con 2017—Phoenix, AZ
• Golaricon 2017—Indianapolis, IN
• Ei-Con 2017—Leiden, Netherlands
• Help The Halflings!! 2017—Spokane, WA
• Save vs. Hunger 2017—Maryville, TN
• Springfest 2017—Kennewick, WA
• ConTRAPtion 2017—Worthing, England
• GEEKS GIVING BACK- Tabletop 2017—Reno, NV
• 1d4 Con 2017—Martinsburg, WV

To support these efforts, the Pathfinder Society team initiated the Charity Boon program in 2016. The program consists of two unique boons that may be used to raise funds for a charity, usually through auctions or raffles. In 2016, the boons were "Memory of Eshiro" and "Thaneguard Mantle" andwe distributed 32 charity boons worldwide. For 2017, the boons are "Bristlecoat" and "Mana Treads" and are currently projecting 40ish being distributed throughout the year.

An event organizer may request a charity boon for their event as part of their request for convention support. A charity qualifies as long as it is non-religious and/or non-political and benefits a public group of people. With the advent of the Regional Support Program (RSP), we are accepting requests for charity boons as part of a RSP event. If you have an upcoming event you feel would benefit from charity support, contact your local Venture-Officer for more information. You can find a list of Venture-Officers here.

Next week, we get a double blog Monday. In one, John will introduce our April scenarios. In another, I'll reveal the results of the "OPC Needs a New Character" competition. If you haven't voted, follow this link and vote for your favorite.

Until next week—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator