Digging up Positivity - Furry charity and good news - August 2021

Welcome to the August edition of Digging Up Positivity! Slowly we are sliding into convention season and of course this comes with plenty of the traditional charitable goals. Speaking of which, this months featurette has a big role with that in South Africa. We have some animation news, and we see where badgers teach traffic safety! And also, if you want to win this T-shirt? Then stay until the end of the show!

Megaplex

It was a bumpy ride, but Megaplex managed to raise $50,000 for the CARE foundation, which houses over two hundred rescued animals including big cats, black bears, monkeys, birds, and much more assorted wildlife. Through a variety of educational programs for schools, resorts, and more, they try to educate the community.

Get Andrew Tabemack back on his Paws

Jill C, also known as JillCostumes, a very well known and good fursuit maker, had started a GoFundMe for Andrew, also known as Tabernak, a longtime friend of her's. Tabernak unfortunately got pulmonary embolism, also known as blood clots, in both his lungs. While it could have ended so much worse, he did end up having to go to the hospital and undergo several treatments. In anticipation of the costs of this all, Jill managed to raise $27,643 dollars (as of the recording) for her longtime friend.

FurTheMore

For a number of years, Frisky’s wildlife & Primate Sanctuary has been the charity of choice at FurTheMore. Unfortunately due to a storm, a tree crashed into their house and caused considerable damage. But thanks the lovely folks of FurTheMore and their friends, they raised $6,015 dollars and hopefully this covers some of the damage.

IndyFurCon

IndyFurCon returned with a magical convention this year and managed to raise $15,935.33 for the Exotic Animal Rescue and Pet Sanctuary, a small non profit animal rescue group of volunteers working to help exotic pets, small companion animals and other non-traditional pets.

DenFur

And last, but not least, we have DenFur who managed to raise $16,000 for the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, in rural Westcliffe, Colorado. Helping them to continue their mission to provide a haven for trans and queer people surrounded by hundreds of cute fluffy animals, in a stunningly beautiful part of Colorado, USA.

Submit a charity

You might have noticed, now that the big conventions are returning, the big charity drives follow suit, but that does not mean the smaller initiatives should be forgotten. If you bump into any of them, do submit them using the form below, or contact me on social media. At the end of this year we will have a big video again with the totals for this year.

And I am happy to say, with over $427,000 raised, we are already close to last year, where despite everything going on, we managed to raise almost $534,000 worldwide

Australia’s furry mascots

The Olympic Games had furry themed mascots in the past. And if you mention those two in one sentence, many will instantly look back at the movie Animalympics from the 80s. But with the last Olympic Games we suddenly they had suspiciously furry mascots in Australia. Starring not just in comics and promotional materials, but even on legal tender! The story behind this is wild, and Pocari Roo decided to jump into it and cover the entire rollercoaster of events that led up to those furry mascots.

Learning traffic safety

While we do know who are behind the Australian furry mascots, it is not as clear with the Swiss AXA, who has a new series about traffic safety aimed at kids featuring a most adorable badger named Max. He could be a meerkat with how good he is with looking around!

With or Without you

Collaborations between talented furry musicians are fun to see, and a delight to listen to. Standing out this month was this lovely cover from U2’s With of Without You by Polar The Lion and Manic, his voice is just— dreamy.

[With or without you clip]

Viaje al Mictlan

Confuror is coming back online this October. Their theme is “Viaje al Mictlan”, or in English, Journey to Mictlan. This is the first part of a tribute to Mexico’s most noble and colourful traditions, which will be continued in October 2022 with Confuror ‘Dia de Muertos’ or also known as ‘Day of the Dead’. For the online edition they will run a virtual fursuit parade, which you can still apply to up to October 4th! Details you can find in the description [of the video] below.

7 years of GFTV

Last episode we did announce that our Eastern colleagues from Global Furry Television were about to celebrate their 7 year anniversary, and celebrating they did!

In a big 3 hour stream they looked back at 7 successful years and presented their plans for the future. You can check out their archived stream here!

Idris Elba in Sonic 2

Sonic the Hedgehog, was a movie adaptation of a video game that made me believe the ‘video game curse’ might have been lifted. And of course with that, a sequel has been announced for April 2022. One of the new appearances will be Knuckles the Echidna, and he will be voiced by Idris Elba! You might know his voice from Chief Bogo (Zootopia), Shere Khan (Jungle Book) and my personal favourite: Stacker Pentecost from Pacific Rim.

Oh Gosh, I love him in that movie. While initially thinking about the silly Knuckles from Sonic Boom, I think this rendition might be a bit more serious!

Ivic

And now onwards to our featurette: Ivic Wolfe, con chair of the South African Fur Con, radio host, and so much more! Start transmission:

[Ivic Interview]

Outtro

Thank you very much for sticking around until the very end! For this month I am giving away one T-shirt, the one I am wearing, in your size of course, courtesy of Artworktee!

All you have to do is to respond on this video saying you would like to have one and I will announce the winner on September 25th in the next episode of digging up positivity!

Now, I would especially thank my sponsors from both Patreon and Subscribestar: Cosmik with a K, Els Deckers, Falconeo, Hanzana, Ishnula, Kitako, Tantroo McNally, Taross, Score Chaser.

Thank you all so much, and of course, all the hugs!