Thanks for stopping by to hear about my fundraising this year!

For anyone new - I do an annual charity fundraiser where I play board games and/or video games for 24 hours in a weekend to raise money for a particular cause.

I also have Ukrainian friends in Kyiv whom I've known for almost 20 years now; when Russia started it's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I wrote about it here .

It's been a long four years, but Ukraine continues to fight, and I continue to support my friends. So, last year and this year, I've shifted my annual fundraising charity to be for a shelter in Dnipro, Ukraine.

The Kherson Center in Dnipro focuses on helping children who have been displaced from their homes, as well as supporting their families. They provide many of the things you'd expect, like food, clothing, and toys.

But I was especially grateful to learn that they also hold classes where psychiatrists help the kiddos learn to express their feelings through creativity. I can't imagine what it's like to be a child living in a war zone, but I can certainly imagine the need to express my feelings about it if I were, and how hard that would have been for me as a kid.

I'm so grateful we have a way to support them.

This year we'll be contributing to additional art supplies and sports equipment, because that's currently the Kherson Center's greatest need.

They share a lot of updates on their Facebook page and most of them are quite uplifting, so if you use Facebook and want a way to balance your news feed with something positive, just let me know. :)

Thank you as always for reading my long missives and caring about this cause. I appreciate you all more than you know. Let's go play some video games, watch me struggle through puzzles for far too many hours, and raise some money while we're there.

Slava Ukraini / Glory to Ukraine!