By now you'll have heard about the camps that have been set up on the southern border of the US, detaining children taken from their families in really appalling conditions. You might also have heard on the news that some US companies have been taking money to help set up these camps, and to my great regret, the company that I work for is one of them - in our case we made a profit on a large order of bunkbeds.
This was a huge and disappointing surprise to me and so many people I work with - I feel extremely guilty that I even unknowingly had a part in providing anything that went into these camps. We're trying to appeal to our leadership and make amends now, and in the meantime I personally want to raise money to go to RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services), the organization that's giving legal aid to these children. This will help them send lawyers to the prison camps, get them out of there and back to their families if they have them, or into safe hands if they came there alone or worse, were smuggled there.
To do that, I want to appeal to you to sponsor my series of Doom gameplay videos. I've set up a Paypal, and in keeping with the theme, I've decided to call this effort paypal.me/sendlawyerstohell . Here, you can donate anything you like and tell me to play and comment on a Doom WAD that perhaps you've made, or just something you'd like to see my thoughts on - I'll forward the money to RAICES and send a copy of the receipt. The guidelines I'm thinking of are something like $10 for a single level, $50 for an episode, $100 for a megawad. If you throw $1000 in maybe I'll even do Plutonia. But anything's appreciated - if loads of people just throw a couple of dollars in and name some WADs, I can look at the ones that are in demand. If you prefer to donate in other ways, send your receipt and a note to
sendlawyerstohell@gmail.com !
So that's what I want to do - you're very welcome to ask questions in the comments or at the email address. But if you want to know more, here are some questions I'm anticipating - the first one is...
"Why do you want children to sleep on concrete floors without supplies, you bastard?"
I don't - specifically, I don't want them to be in a prison camp, and any friction that happens in the process of setting them up is a good thing. But that might not the point - as uncomfortable as I feel about it, the order has already been fulfilled, and yes, you could say it's good that these children have something that . That's why I want to concentrate on something I can do to get them out of there, above board, make them legal immigrants.
"Why am I sending money straight to you?"
I completely understand that you might not want to send your money to a newly set up Paypal run by someone who looks like the last James Bond villain in the shop. So if you want - please feel free to donate to RAICES or your preferred cause that will help them and send me a receipt instead. But there's something else - the company has said that they will match donations to RAICES as long as they're coming directly from me. So if you use the Paypal, you're effectively doubling your donation. It's fine if you're more comfortable a different way - don't feel guilty, but I did it this way to maximize the effect we can have together.
"Will you stream them?"
I'll try! I might not be able to do it regularly because I do have a toddler myself, and she adds an exciting random kind of element to my life - but if you want to follow
https://www.twitch.tv/davidxn on Twitch, I'll try to post alerts there when I have the chance. The main place you'll see them is on this channel here on Youtube.
That's all just now - I really want to combine the passion that I've seen from my colleagues with one of my favourite game making communities, and I really hope that by sending lawyers to hell together to get children out, we can really make a difference.
