Digging Up Positivity - June 2023

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This month in Digging up Positivity, furry conventions raising money for charity, the fandom comes together to help those down on their luck, an upcoming furry comedy, and a lovely interview with this years’ winner of the Good Furry Award: Kite.

And stay till the very end of this video where I reveil the winner of the Pawperty Damage game on Steam, and various other announcements.

This month has been filled to the brink with not just the regular fundraisers, but also a whole lot in the spirit of this rainbow coloured month. Something we, as a fandom, can be very proud of.

So... lets be like a meerkat and dig in!

AnthroOhio

In Columbus, Ohio, USA, the critters from AnthroOhio raised $8,258.75 for the Ohio Nature Preservation!

Confuzzled

And in the UK, we have Confuzzled. Where, just like with any convention, they had some troubles during the registration. But! When life gives you lemons, these critters make the best combustible lemons to grab life by the tail! They took the badge that halted the whole thing and sold it for £2,000! And with this, they all raised $50,875.67 for Wolf Watch UK!

Shutters’ Hotel Buglary

One of our previous featurettes, organiser of many events and lovely photographer, Shutter, found his hotel-room broken into during AnthroOhio where not just his wallet, but various tech equipment was stolen. Currently $4,050 has been raised
to cover the damages by grateful furs everywhere while not covering the costs entirely, it does warm my heart seeing someone who is not exclusively busy at the forefront and in the limelight, getting some love from this fandom.

Radio Rabbithole

A regular returning rabbit when it comes down to raising for charity, Romeo with Radio Rabbithole, managed to raise $500 for ALS research. And here we see him doing the ice bucket challenge. Go Rabbit Go!

Pride and Kindness

Every year, amazing furry artists come together to draw furry art to raise money for the following LGBTQ charities: Mermaids, The Trevor Project and Milos Nie Wykluzca. They will be going this entire Pride Month and while barely halfway, they already raised $2,000.

Aard Squad

In Washington, USA, the Aard Squad raised $5,070 for the Wanda Alston Foundation. A local charity organisation dedicated to help the homeless LGBTQ+ youth to provide them a chance through education, job training and guidance, and so much more.

South Afrifur

Meanwhile all the way in South Africa, South Afrifur raised $471.18 for PACT, the Phoenix Animal Care & Treatment, established in 2012 to provide care and medical treatment for animals in the Phoenix Area in South Afrika.

Odin’s Trailer

Within the fandom, several furs are making an active living from the fandom itself, either from art, selling merchandise, or making content. Odin Wolf is amongst one of the more known youtubers with a business on the side.

But unfortunately during one of his visits to a convention to sell his merch with a friend, his trailer, which was still quite filled, got stolen. And to make matters worse, he even got badgered by one of those cringe youtubers.

But the fandom came together and fortunately the damage got covered through a GoFundMe. Raising $11,825 dollars. But of course, I rather just— have people not steal stuff in the first place.

Furality

But hey, some reject this imperfect world and start to build their own! And furries have shown they can do that and so much more in VR. And one of the go-to places is Furality! They recently had their virtual convention and raised $17,811 for the Equality Florida Institute.

Cult of Blahaj

A lot of amazing furry streamers banded together during Trans Charity Week for The Cult Of Blahaj. Like a previous guest Sherbert, but also ItsMapleDoe, and SonicGott, and many more. Together they raised a $7,200.69 for the Trans Empowering Project!

StratosFur

StratosFur returned this year and raised $3,195 for Give Us Paws, a non profit service dog and pet dog training organisation helping veterans suffering from PTSD, MST but also citizens who are otherwise disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Sports Wheelchair for Ducky

Ducky Dalmatian is a fur who got a spinal injury in 2019, however ever since he has been very active in adaptive sports! While he never considered himself an athlete, many do. And for the sports he plays, he requires a sport-wheel chair and for far he raised $616.

Anthro New England

Some conventions have their favourite charities, returning several years. And sometimes it is difficult to say goodbye to one of those. For many years Anthro New England supported NEADS, a non-profit organisation devoted to raise and train service dogs for people with disabilities, veterans or children with development disabilities amongst others. In total they raised $36,850 during that time, but now it is time to pass the bone to Wings of The Dawn, a wildlife rehabilitation center and bird sanctuary. We do wish them all the best!

Confuror

With all the new announcements, one of my personal favourite conventions on my bucketlist, Confuror, has announced their new charity: Nutrias de Mexico. They seek to promote the conservation and study for otters in Mexico through scientific research, integration of location communities and environmental education. This announcement was accompanied by wonderful art by Almita Otter. I am sure we will hear a lot more about this later this year.

UAnimals

I am proud to announce the new charity for Eurofurence: UAnimals. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they were already quite a successful animal rescue organisation in many ways, but now during this dreadful conflict, they have devoted themselves to rescue animals from the hot zones. As a member of the Eurofurence Charity team, I will promise I try my best for this wonderful cause.

Artwork Tee Pride Collection

*RECORD SCRATCH*

GPS Device: "You have arrived at your destination (Mars)"

Available now the Artwork Tee Pride Collection!
Use discount PRIDE2023 at checkout until June 30th for 25% off all

Seriously where am I?

Papa Bear

A long, long time ago I often watched videos from Cracked, who made quite some fun videos back in the days. Two of the creators behind a lot of these, Swaim and Abe. Recently they closed a successful crowd funding campaign for a movie project!

It is going to be a comedy based on one of the creators’ dad coming out as a gay back when he was 17. In this case, the main character, Trey, is initially quite happy for him however when he also reveals he is a furry, attending conventions as a cartoon bear named Papa Bear and is collecting drawings of the nature I can not show here.

On top of that, the news travels fast, reaching Trey’s school and his father invites another fur to crash in their guest room things quickly reach a boiling point.

What ensues is going to be a crazy comedy aimed to explore many myths around furries, LGBTQ members, but besides that showing that love is love, but doesn't shy away from the face that love also takes some work!

At the time of writing the campaign raised over $70,000 dollars, passing the goal by over $5,000.

Featurette: Kite

[Interview]

Thank You

Thank you so much for staying with us. And here is the announcement of last month's winner of the Pawperty Damage Steamkey. I grabbed all the comments and assigned them a number and thanks to the google random number generator the winner is: Ilay Brugs!

Thank you very much all for those lovely and funny comments. Illay, please do contact me before the next episode. And squeeking of which, yes, I will be interviewing a world famous mouse, well, world famous in the Netherlands. She is an
amazing fursuit builder, but more about that on the 29th of July.

Would you like to see more Thabo goodness, I will be streaming almost every Monday on Twitch, and if you want to support the channel, check out my artwork tee store with some lovely merchandise. Or toss a coin for your meerkat at Patreon or Subscribestar like these amazing critters: Cosmik with a K, Els Deckers, Falconeo, Hanzana, Ishnula, Manick, Tantroo McNally, Taross, and Score Chaser

And remember, love you all, stay awesome and all the hugs!