Digging Up Positivity - April 2022

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Hello everybody and welcome to the April edition of Digging Up Positivity! This episode is filled to the brink with charity events and fundraisers. And now that most of the world is slowly opening up again, the urge to go out and have fun again is real with many of us! When I visited some of them, like Elfia, it was like a reunion from a long lost time, and many conversations went like this [scene from the Witcher]:

I haven't seen you since the plague.

But besides new events, charities and just plain old outside fun, recently a new furry social network has been rapidly growing: Barq. And this social network has been founded by a Dutch Fur, Woutske, who is our featurette of this month, but now, without further ado: The charities.

ScotiaCon

Being held in February, it took a while to crunch the numbers, but the final amount is known! $14,956.79 has been raised for the Sunny Harbour Cat Rescue: a pro-indoor, no-kill, family-run cat charity based in East Central Scotland.

Furnexion

From Mexico we have our friends at Furnexion who raised $386 for Corazones Incondiconales, an organisation that has as a mission to stop abuse, abandonment and help young puppies.

Motor City Furcon

Up next we have Motor City Furcon, in the US, who raised $25,002.20 for Hay Monsters Rabbit Sanctuary. A foster-based sanctuary for domestic rabbits, specialized in taking on hard medical cases, and neglect situations but they also help rescue and rehabilitate stray or abandoned rabbits.

Papa Barks - Justin Paul Reese

Justin Paul Reese who managed to raise over $1,000 dollars during an 8 hour Elden Ring stream and a 12 hour VR stream for the Papa Barks fundraiser for ALS. But during his thank you video he got a big surprise:

$700 Dollars! "Should be using it on student loans but rather donate it to a great cause." Yooo!

$700 dollars, that is some positive vibes right there! Stay awesome you absolute legends! With this amount, the total raised by Justin was $2,079.

Papa Barks

Which brings the complete total raised this year on $45,600. A truly amazing feat by the entire team of the ‘Help them help us 2022’ campaign. I am just humbled by how much good the furry gaming community is doing for this world. You critters are all amazing. Many thanks to Papa Barks and his many friends for raising this amount for the fight against ALS.

Golden State Furcon

Back to conventions, we have Golden State Furcon, where 1,758 critters raised $15,000 dollars for Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to preserving the lives of abused, neglected and abandoned exotic animals.

Sonic Adventure Speedfun!

I still remember Sonic Adventure fondly, when I got an imported Dreamcast from Japan I played it a lot. And Adler decided to do a speed fun run of it while raising money for The Cincinnati Tradition Drum and Bugle Corps. This ball of feathers managed to raise $4,318! An impressive amount, and as Sonic would say "Gotta raise fast!"

Kofulion: Triangle Walk for ALS

If there is one name that keeps popping up in fundraising, it is Dogbomb, and fundraisers for ALS done in his name keep on popping up. Kofullion has dutifully walked for ALS for team Dogbomb for a long time now and the last run this month he raised $875 dollars during the Triangle Walk. With every walk organized, with every dollar risen, we may come closer to a cure of this dreadful disease.

Train of Hope

Because of that dreadful situation in Ukraine, many had to leave their home behind, but they found a place where they could stay. But it is just a difficult time for them, so it is important that especially now, some moments of joy and happiness are so much needed. Several cosplayers and furries, Karpour, Raddic, and Aturu did do just that with ‘Train of Hope’. Seeing this really warms my heart.

ArtForUA update

Last month we covered the ArtForUA project extensively and they are showing no sign of slowing down! By now over 120 artists drew more than 500 pieces and raised $26,816 dollar for Ukraine. And this amount is still growing every single day!

Relocating coots

The coot, or how the Dutch call them: De meerkoet , and as a meerkat I love to call them like that. Meerkat, meerkoet *grin*. But, when they making their little nest, they don’t want to be disturbed, and if they are, often they do not accept their new environment. When Iris saw them nestle on a neighbor their boat, she decided she wanted to build a little floating island for them. Since the boat they were on would not stay there for long. The owner even offered to help! In the end the coots did not accept their new nest, however a new family of ducks was happy to fill in the spot!

Easter in s’Gravenzande

When Easter comes around, many fursuiters, especially bunnies are found all over the place, handing out eggs or helping with those famous egg-hunts. This year in the Dutch city of s’Gravenzande I was part of a big group that were spreading chocolate eggs and heaps of joy! However, some might be seeing double? *laughs* But that is a story for another time.

Unifursity

One of the first big announcements for Dutch events after the Big Plague, was Unifursity. While featured a while back, I hereby let one of the organizers do the word once more.

[Tupsy discusses Unifursity]

Know that I will be there! Maybe I will run into you?

Usagi

One of the comics I used to read when I was a younger meerkit was Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai. Who has quite some ties with the furry fandom, he even was a guest of honour at Eurofurence 16 back in 2010 where I had the honour of briefly meeting him! Throughout the time the rabbit samurai would show up every now and then in the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, another fan favorite.

This series however focuses on Yuichi Usagi, a distant descendant of the legendary warrior Miyamoto Usagi, allowing the writers to give the entire universe a new twist. And the transition to 3D surely is different. Where the main characters are nicely rendered, the background characters do show they had to work on a limited budget, but the ‘2D’ segments sure seem to make up for it. Curious to see how it ends up!

It will premiere later this month on Netflix.

Featurette Woutske

[Interview with guest]

Outtro

Thank you very much for sticking around till the very end of this video. I always enjoy seeing you here. If you would like to support this channel even more, go to my Patreon, or SubscribeStar, or buy something from my merch-store. All links in the [video description]. And I will be so thankful, like to these wonderful people: Cosmik with a K, Els Deckers, Falconeo, Hanzana, Ishnula, Kitako, Manick, Tantroo McNally, Taross, and Score Chaser.

The next Digging Up Positivity will be on the 28th of May! Hope to see you there, stay awesome and of course...all the hugs!

With all those wonderful fundraisers going on, no matter the size, I would love to know about them. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments or in the contact form in the description! Every December we have a listing of all the charities of this year and we try to make it as complete as possible! And remember, no matter how small, every effort makes an impact for good!