Toy info

Sorry I fell asleep way too early Tuesday and didn't manage to post this beforehand - so, crossposted from rubydebrazier's lj, re toys:

Toys for Sick Kids
Ali [(ali_wildgoose)] is keeping me company tonight and has graciously offered to have toys sent to her at work where the door guy can sign for them and I can pick them up and take them to the Hospital.

I cannot express how amazingly cool it is that you are sending toys. There are not too many reasons why a child would have to stay in the hospital over Christmas and all of them suck. These are the kids who are just too sick for us to send home and some of them have family situations that (for a variety of sucky reasons) they cannot in good conscience be sent home to endure.

Your toys are really going to make them (and me, and everyone involved at the hospital) very happy.

So, here are the rules:

Toys are for children ages 6 months to 16 years.
Toys should be new, because we don't want them to feel like they got second-hand toys, no matter how cool your vintage toys are, they should be still in the box.
Toys should not be wrapped because we are trying to give each child what they would want and that is hard if we cannot tell what the toy is.
Finally, the deadline for toys is DECEMBER 16!
December 16 or the hospital will not have enough time to get them sorted and wrapped and ready not just for Christmas but also for Channukah, which ends a little bit earlier.

Any questions please let me know [nore from heidi - post a q on her lj at rubydebrazier] and will answer them
in the comments [there].

Here is the address:

Ruby
c/o Curious Pictures
6th floor
440 Lafayette Street
NY, NY 10003

Some of you may remember Ali as the originator of Diagon Alley: the website wayback in 2000 or 2001 - she also coordinated the first fandom-wide letters to jkr project back in 2003.

If you want to send money instead of toys, I need it by the 14th, so I can fedex a check by the 16th. Same PO box, and here's the PayPal info:

I can answer questions about $ donations, but not about toys - those should go to ruby's lj. And I'm still trying to find out if my account can get wires from anywhere but the US or Canada...

Per requests on my latkes post...

Does anyone know how to add a text "add this post to my memories" thing in my s2 style?

Tis the season...

Fandom-centric Holiday Fundraising Thingies
Get a Clue, Give a Galleon, Get a Sticker with The Leaky Cauldron - sticky (for cars, etc.) and static (for windows) stickers are available and every dollar above cost will go to aid Book Aid International in their fight to bring literacy to underdeveloped nations. Harry Potter fans, through Leaky, Inc., are responsible for purchasing more than 13,000 books -$30,000 - in the last two years. Stay tuned to TLC for some interesting updates on the drive (and, er, sorry about the need to scroll)!

DanRadcliffe.com and DanRadcliffe.co.uk are co-presenting a fundraiser for Demelza House Children's Hospice in the UK at the request of Dan and his family. All fans that donate to this very worthy cause will have the opportunity to send Christmas thoughts and wishes to Dan along with their donations. All of the thoughts and wishes will be collected by both sites and then combined and printed in a professionally bound book for Dan this Christmas season, courtesy of Demelza House! ALL those wanting to have a Christmas message published and sent to Dan for the holidays needs to make their donation and send in their message no later than 17 December 2004. For details on how to submit your Christmas wish to Dan please see the Donations and Questions section here. (Don't post them in comments - I won't know the answers!)

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Things Beyond Fandom That Impact Fandomers:

If you're looking for the info I postes about the Action Figures Action toy-drive, in support of the toy drive at rubydebrazier's hospital, you can find it here.

Friends of sapphireisle's mom have set up a website to raise money to help her deal with expenses not covered by insurance that have accrued over hte past few years while she's been battling a rare form of cancer. You can chip in via the website, and check out some eBay auctions and other shopping things that will help her out as well.

I also know of at least two ongoing computer drives but I will not post the info here, because I am not friends-locking this post. If you want more information about either of them, email me - and I ask that nobody post info about them in the comments - we want the recipients to be surprised!

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Things Relating to the Toy Drive (see above) and the Computer Fund Whip-Around

I've been asked how much money was spent on flash drives or security devices for Cassie, Josh and Ruby's coputers - the answer is none. Someone did offer to send a flash drive; when it arrives I'll give it to the three of them to decide who's going to use it, but it's not something that any of the money is going to be spent on, per my post here where I asked if anyone was able to send the drives themselves.

I've also been asked why I spent money on security devices for the computers, and I assume that said question referred to my post here, as if I was somehow saying that I was going to use some of the whip-around funds to get three of those installations. No, I was asking as a general question, to see if anyone had something like that, or thought it was a good thing to have on a laptop in general. Again, no money from the whip-around has been spent on that, nor will it be.

Now, here's the plan as to sending the money raised to the toy drive - on the 15th, I'm going to send a check via fedex (which I am paying for myself) to Ruby of whatever was not used for the computer purchases themselves for her to use for the toy drive, from what has been given via PayPal, and send her the checks that arrive as well. Since anything that comes in after the 16th won't be used for this year, I'm probably going to wait until the 30th or so to see if any more checks come in, and then send all those to Ruby as a starter for the 2005 drive. I also plan to refuse/refund (however PayPal terms it) any PayPal contributions that come in after the 15th, because we can't use them for this toy drive, but any checks that come in after the 30th - well, I'll probably send anything that comes in after the 30th some time in January or February, if any arrive, but please don't put any in the mail after the 14th - it likely won't get here in time. And don't ask me yet if I'm going to organize another toy drive next year - it's too far away to contemplate.