Third Annual Spina Bifida Awareness Raid Train Fundraiser

 

The third annual Spina Bifida Awareness Raid Train Fundraiser is complete and now in the books. And it was exciting as ever before as many memories were made. 

This year however, I made the decision to lower the donation goal from $1,000 last year to $500 this year. 

Things started well with the first live streamer as she switched things up and played a trivia game with the chat. And that got really lively but really fun. From that point on in the raid train, music was being played. And you know me by now if you have been reading this blog, music is important in my life.

Here are some of the highlights of the event: 

After the trivia, the music streams got started. At one point, another streamer brought their community into the raid train with over 100 viewers. It set up a great opportunity to bring even more awareness for people. 

From there came the great "Wonderwall" debacle. The participating streamer had set up on their stream that if a viewer has 50,000 channel points to use and redeem that streamer would perform the song by Oasis. 

A viewer did in fact redeem those points. What had to be done, had to be done. Until we realized that the upcoming streamer also had "Wonderwall" on their song list. 

Already the viewers were groaning about it. But they all survived, and we soldiered on! 

The next streamer remembered and had put "Wonderwall" in the queue. Promising to have that song played a second time by a second music streamer. 

I personally was in agreement with the viewers and thought once was enough, or even too much. Therefore, I came up with the idea that if someone had donated $25 towards the fundraiser, then I as that streamer's moderator would eliminate the song from the queue.

Nearly right away, someone did donate that $25. It happened so fast. It tells you about the audience watching at the time that they just preferred not to go through with it again. 

And as it was a fundraiser, I announced that there was a bidding war. If someone donated $30 to the fundraiser, that I would put the song back into the queue. But the streamer had other ways of dealing with the situation. Alas, the song was played a second time. A lot of the viewers in chat making comments about how they were muting their speakers and waiting it out so that they could unmute and enjoy the rest of the music. 

I began to think of a way to incorporate "Wonderwall" with a future fundraising event and finding ways to get people to donate so that they either did not have to listen to the song or that they did have to listen. I will have to think about it more. I don't want to chase people away! 

From there we went to our final music streamer of the event before I came on to my own live stream to end things and talk about personal experiences. 

The streamer had actually found some informative videos discussing Spina Bifida. I am not sure where, but they were actually kind of nice to have. 

Then the donations started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. Having a goal of $500 and I had not even been live on stream yet, not knowing how long I would be able to stream, the goal was nearly met before I even turned on the camera.

The fundraiser had reached $460 when it was my turn to stream. By the time I turned off the stream, we all had raised $650!

I am looking forward to doing this again for the FOURTH year in a row next year. 

Thanks to those who helped me make things possible to get the word out this year. Thanks to all the streamers on Twitch that participated this year. Thanks to all of those who donated and those who showed so much support during the entire event. Special thanks to those who came and showed support to me personally. I love you all!! 

By all means go and check out these wonderful people who helped made this year a wonderful year. 

vaidahK
JerfoTheMusicAddict
cdubguitar
SarahCameronMusic
skittlefarts91

A few people asked about whether or not I would keep the fundraiser around a little while longer as they express interest in donating once their pay day rolled around. And I agreed to keep it open until at least December. 

If you missed the raid train on Twitch and wish to contribute, and have the means to, you may do so. 

DONATE TO SPINA BIFIDA AWARENESS HERE.