Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Wounded Warrior Benefit Raises Over 300,000 Lindens




By Bixyl Shuftan

On Sunday Nov 25, Patriot Island held it's monthly Wounded Warrior fundraiser. From 4PM to just after 9PM SL time, four live musicians and a DJ performed at the stage in the sim's hangar building. The event was attended by up to a few dozen at the sim at once.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend folks.  The monthly Wounded Warriors benefit is tonight ...and right now Waya Snowpaw is doing it up big time! … Come on out and give thanks by donating to our Veterans and support those who give us our freedom! 

The Lindens slowly built up over time. The cash raised was displayed in the two upside down helmet collection jars on each side of the performers stage. As the musicians played, the listeners danced below. DJ Waya Snowpaw, PonDman Haalan, Paul Nowles, Frets Nirvana & Chapman Zane performed. Frets Nirvana had helped organize the event, on occasion offering to match donations made by listeners, "Got a-ways to go folks. I will put another 1k in if someone else will." Dahlea Milena, who helps run the sim, encouraged people to donate. GJackie Winkler helped give thank you for those donating.

The fundraising goal for the night was 275,000 Lindens, "We have sent over $10,000 RL to Wounded Warriors this year" Frets explained to the audience, "We want to send $12000, we need 275k linden to stay on target."

By 5:30, 29,000 had been raised. By 6, the amount had gone up to 49,000. By 6:30, the amount was over 72,000, which went up to 83,350 in a few minutes. By 6:40 the 100,000 mark had been passed. Donations continued throughout the night. Finally at 8:56 the amount was 271,000 Lindens. Someone then chipped in 4,000 to bring the amount to the 275,000 goal. GJackie Winkler, "Rght now we are at 275,851L, !Wow! You all are so wonderful, big huge huggsss!" Frets Nirvana added, "Excellent, just absolutely excellent folks!"

As the minutes went by, people continued to chip in, "278k!" "Let's see 300K." The musician at the end, Chapman Zane, continued on for a few more minutes, finishing with a "Yehaa!" followed by "Folks, I want to thank you all very much. … you all are wonderful."

The total amount raised at the conclusion of the event was 304,851 Lindens. Following the change of the music stream back to radio, Chapman explained, "I think the WW's program is great. It's a way for us to give back to those that gave for us." Dahlea added, "I think everyone did an incredible effort here tonight. The musicians and their fans are a HUGE part of this, their support for our Wounded Warriors is just so heartwarming and Frets is just absolutely the best at organizing this and putting in so much effort gathering all this great talent and his own time & talent too, I'm absolutely so very very grateful for all the hard work he puts into this." (smile)

For more on the Wounded Warrior Project, click here: http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

Bixyl Shuftan

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