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.

Capital City Fur Con has closed any future gatherings after its premiere in January 2020 due to financial mismanagement. Staffers came forward to discuss the issues caused by the chair’s fiscal malfeasance, and guests have reported that honored guests who were promised compensation were left out in the cold.

The greatest grievance, though, is that it is alleged that the charity they were raising money for, the ALS Association, also were not given their money. ALS has gained infamy in the fandom due to the disease that took the late Tony “DogBomb” Barret, and many conventions over the year have been raising money toward research for a cure since.

More information can be seen on Global Furry Television’s coverage on the below video which is transcribed below.

Midwest Furfest 2019 had a pleasant surprise for its charity. An anonymous donor had decided to match the generosity of those that had gathered, which was $110,000. This doubling to $220,000 was a major push that had set up the fandom to make it past a milestone last year of raising over a million dollars to charitable causes cumulatively. The final total coming to $1,109,974.51.

The reference for this was not Wikifur as one might expect, but instead was released via a Youtube video, put together by Thabo Meerkat and Dixie Lioness. While it may seem to be a simple feature with just a bunch of numbers, these figures actually tell us a lot about the future of fundraising in the furry fandom.

Editor's Note: The author of this article runs the Good Furry Award.

As Christmas comes around sometimes its good to reflect on the nice furries on our lists. Here you can reward those furries with an annual award designed to promote individuals in our community that have improved lives for others.

The 2020 Good Furry Award is open for nominations! The award is a prize for furries (or groups of furries) who have shown themselves to be good citizens of the furry community.

It debuted last year, hosted on the Ask Papabear advice column website, and the winner was Tony "Dogbomb" Barrett.

Furry icons on social media sites went dark on April 5, 2019, following a tweet from Dogbomb that he would be passing on soon. Known for his German Shepherd fursona, Tony Barrett had modelled his character in honor of Rodger, a canine companion he'd lost, who had been with him for 14 years.

Dogbomb's wardrobe consisted of a Hawaiian-style lei, which is why some of the recent icons have been placing the flowery necklace against a black background, a design put forth by The Forgess, pictured here.

It stands out as a beacon, as Tony had been in his life.

Update 4/8: Fixed statement where Lei art was falsely credited to Trinity. Thanks to BlindWolf8 for the correction.