Stack Up’s mission to promote positive mental health and suicide prevention in our active duty and veteran service members is one that hits home with many. Some of us have friends and family that have served or are actively serving (or have personally served), some of us have lost loved ones to suicide, some of us are mental health advocates, and some of us are a combination of all three. Whatever the reason that brings us all together under this banner, we can’t deny that a huge thank you is owed to our supporters who use their platforms to spread the mission, tell people about our programs, and help us raise money.
As often as possible, Stack Up holds a presence at conventions, ranging from TwitchCon to PAX and even Comic Con. Last year at Comic-Con in New York, a streamer by the handle Nerdy_Senpai came across a crowd of people wearing red shirts. “They were holding signs for veterans and for streamers,” she says, recalling what first drew her to Stack Up. “I have some veterans in my life that are very dear to me, and I thought it would be awesome to fundraise for a charity that not only was about helping veterans, but through gaming, which is a big passion of mine.” It was here that Nerdy met Influencer Relations Team Manager PerkyDaisy, and signed up to join last year’s Call 2 Arms fundraising event.
Nerdy was new to our Call 2 Arms campaign but was excited to be involved, and it seemed her community was just as thrilled! Less than 2 hours into her event, a $2,000 donation came through. Nerdy was shocked and humbled by the support. Since Nerdy’s incentives had included a sticker on her for every $25 raised, one chatter then asked, “How many stickers is that?” The chaos kept coming until Nerdy and her community had raised over $10,000 for Stack Up. It was a sight to behold and a wonderful experience to be a part of.
You can watch the video-on-demand of her Stack Up fundraising stream here.
“My favorite part of the charity event was hearing from SO many people who are close to military vets and active duty service members, and how much they see there is a stress on them,” Nerdy replied as she thought back on the event. “They thanked me for raising funds for this cause because of the mental toll they have seen the veterans in their lives go through and how they felt like those people were being heard. It squeezed [the hell] out of my heartstrings.” There likely wasn’t a person in chat that didn’t shed a tear to see the community come together in this way.
But what does Nerdy do outside of charity streams? She’s goofy, she’s silly, and she does a lot of cosplays! Nerdy’s a huge fan of RPGs as well. “My favorite game is Skyrim. I love it because you can replay it over and over and continue to find new easter eggs, and it never gets old.” But there’s a hint of variety in what she plays, too. “I try a lot of different games, but I am most excited about games that are remakes from my all-time favorites.” She’s told me that she’s extremely excited about the upcoming Fable release and is very interested to see how they’ve changed and adapted it for modern audiences.
To close out our chat, I asked Nerdy if she had any advice for people looking to do a charity event for the first time:
“I would say just go for it. I have only ever done two charity events so far, and I was honestly very worried that my small community wouldn’t make much difference. Both times, my community has far exceeded my expectations. Try not to expect anything, but know that every little bit does make a big difference, and just go for it.”
“Also,” she adds at the end, “Stack Up provides a TON of support for their fundraisers, so you won’t feel like you have to figure it all out alone.” It’s true; most of the Influencer Relations Team popped into Nerdy’s stream while she was running her event to hype her up and show support, and we do our best to hype up all of our streamers. We know there are a ton of organizations that you could choose to fundraise for, and it means a lot to us when you decide to work with us. We do our best to make sure that our streamers feel supported and that they have fun as much as possible, regardless of the amount raised.
We look forward to getting an opportunity to work with Nerdy again in the future! You can check out Nerdy_Senpai on her Twitch channel.