The Generosity of Weirdos

I was contacted today by a representative of Food For The Poor. They wanted to know what I was doing in the podcast because they’ve received a noticeable spike in recent days from Weird Darkness listeners! What a thrill to be told that. WEIRDO FAMILY MEMBERS ARE AMAZING!!!!

It actually took me a couple of hours to answer their questions, but the whole time doing so I cannot tell you how proud I was, how big the smile was on my face, from hearing this news. You saw the need, the importance of life, and you stepped up to help. How many podcasts (especially dark content podcasts) have listeners that do that? You Weirdos are incredible.

And to think… I almost didn’t move forward with the campaign for December. In October we had our annual fundraiser to bring awareness, education and relief to those who suffer from depression. You know that’s something close to me. To then turn around one month later and have another month of “please give to such-n-such” seemed way too soon. I didn’t want – and still don’t want – Weird Darkness to become a podcast that is always doing a fundraiser. I don’t want you to tune in and think every episode is going to be asking for you to make a donation to this charity, then that cause, then this other foundation over here and then that organization over there. They are all worthy of support, I’m sure, but no one can support all of them – and there is such a thing as donor fatigue. I was afraid after October many of you would either ignore the Food For The Poor messages, or possibly even stop listening to Weird Darkness because you were getting tired of being asked to donate to charity.

You proved me wrong, and I could not be happier about that.

2021 won’t have this as an issue, because October will not be a full-month fundraiser for depression next year. Instead, we are now donating all profits we receive from the Weird Darkness Store to organizations that help those who struggle with depression – and that’s a heckuva lot more than we ever brought in during the one-month fundraiser anyway, so that actually works to the benefit of iFred.org, 7Cups.com, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Doing this means June and December – or whatever months we choose – can be used for Food For The Poor and have a good six months separation between them.

This has become a longer post than I intended for it to be. I essentially just wanted to say thank you so much, Weirdo family, for your generous hearts, your amazing souls, and your unwavering loyalty to a podcast that doesn’t deserve it – but is thankful that it has it.

God bless you all.