Editing The Pen Addict 579/transcript (section)

== St. Jude Children's Research Hospital fundraising ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad, it's basically September around here. And you know what that means. It's time to donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. And let me tell you a little bit about why. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And once again, for the fifth year in a row, the RelayFM community is coming together to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. St. Jude won't stop their life-saving work until no child dies from cancer. And with your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer. St. Jude cares for some of the world's sickest children, regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs, or ability to pay. Their patients receive customized care, the care that they need to treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases, no matter what barriers they face. Because of St. Jude supporters, they can provide children with cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance at no cost to families. Families will never receive a bill from St. Jude for their treatment, their travel, their housing, or food. Meaning that they can do and focus on the one thing that matters most. Helping their child live. This September, join RelayFM and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in recognizing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And honor those impacted by childhood cancer. Before St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Today, treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% since opening. But there is still work to be done. We are so incredibly grateful for the generosity that our community has shown over the last five years. We have raised $2.2 million in the last five years as a community. Unbelievable. This year, we are asking you again to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude. And we want to surpass $2.5 million this year. Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will receive a digital bundle of RelayFM wallpapers and screensavers. Last year, screensaver sent shockwaves through the RelayFM community. You don't want to miss out on this. Also, if you make an individual gift of $100 or more, you will receive our 2023 sticker pack featuring all new designs. We have something new this year when you donate. Please click the blue Search Employer button on the Donation Summary page. This will allow you to do a search and check if your employer offers a matching gift program. This is so much easier than it's been before. Previously, this is information you've had to have known or you need to go to your HR department. But if you just do this search, if your employer shows up, the system will email you with details about how to get the match credited to our campaign total. So it explains how to do everything. This could double your donation. So really, you should check. If you work for a company, check the Search Employer button at the end. And look, over the years, we're adding more and more stuff in for ways that you can get involved. We understand that not everybody has the ability to donate themselves. So last year, we started the ability to allow for our community to set up fundraising campaigns of their own. It was a huge success last year, and we're bringing it back this time with more exclusive RelayFM merch. So if you sign up to become a fundraiser and you can share that fundraising link with your community, with your friends, your family, your co-workers, any fundraiser who raises at least $1 will receive the 2023 Face-Off RelayFM St. Jude Challenge Coin. And also, fundraisers raising $250 or more will also receive this year's incredible desk mat design, which features Myke and Stephen, that's me and my co-founder Stephen Hackett, in a Street Fighter-style fighting pose. It is unbelievable. These are on the website. You have to go look at this stuff. Also, if you're in the top 50 fundraisers this year, you will receive a limited edition RelayFM for St. Jude tote bag in an all-weather material. It's super cool. So I know there's a lot here. The most important thing, just give money. Whether you're giving it yourself, you're fundraising, or you're doing employee matching, all that kind of stuff, please go to stjude.org slash relay. You can find out more there and donate. That is stjude.org slash relay to learn more and donate today. St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. With your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer. This month and every month, let's cure childhood cancer together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this is a big deal for us every year. It's one of those things, Myke, that I never thought I'd be doing this later in my life, but I've always loved being involved in charities and helping people out. And just to see the numbers that this community raises is just so uplifting to be a part of, and just the good that the community brings. And yeah, it's amazing to be a part of. So what I do at the Pen Addict to participate in this and to help drive donations to St. Jude, and I'm not telling you to not go today and donate to St. Jude, but if you're a Pen Addict listener, what I've done for the past four years, I guess this is the fifth year, right, is I've done a raffle to where you make your donation to St. Jude and you send me your receipt. And I'm going to have all these details up on Monday, beginning Monday, and it will run for most of the month of September through September 26, so we can announce a total that we raised through the Pen Addict on the podcast at the end of the month. And so what I do is over the past several months, really throughout most of the early part of the year, is I've talked to vendors, I've talked to friends, and I've gotten a bunch of donations to the Pen Addict for this raffle. So what I will do on September 4th is I'm going to start listing all the things I've received from just amazing friends and retailers and vendors and things like that, that you will be able to participate in a raffle for every $10 you donate. Starting on September 4th, you send me your receipt, and for every $10 you get an entry into a raffle ticket, and then when it ends on September 26th, I will start picking winners.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you can donate as much as you want, like your unlimited amount of tickets.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can donate now as well and then also donate again from Monday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, a lot of people do. What happens on the Pen Addict raffle is things escalate as we go through. Like once people see people want to participate in giving things to the raffle to help drive more and more donations. So I'll have people donate like once a week or once in the beginning and then once again at the end once more products and things get listed. So just to give you an idea, and this is not the entire list of things, but I know we have a Tesori pen from our friend John Tello. If you remember the ones from last year, the bright orange ones that were really beautiful. We're going to have two Caneleia pens from our friends Hugh and Carol over at Caneleia Pen Co. We're going to have a full Plotter set up with a very neat and unique cover that's going to be in there. So Plotter has been a great participant to this fundraising. We're going to have an ink set from Amarillo Stationery. We're going to have a spoke design build your own icon, which I'm looking forward to playing with. We're going to have a Pilot Custom 823 from – we have several mysterious benefactors, Myke, that will go unnamed, but people in the community, individuals, wanted to donate pens or other products to this and go nameless. We have a very rare Pilot Custom limited edition of 70 that I opened up on Twitch stream yesterday that someone sent me. This is going to knock a lot of people's socks off. Some very exclusive to the Japanese market sailor pens, Myke. We have an Elwood pen, and it just goes on and on and on. I'm not even coming close to listing everything. So look for it on Monday. Look for the initial listing and for all the details on how you can donate, where to send the receipt to, all the information you need. This has gone pretty well every year. I just set up an individual inbox for this, and it has gone swimmingly. It takes a little bit of manual labor to get it done, but I'm more than happy to do this to help shine a light on all the good that St. Jude does, and I'm just super happy to participate in this. And so, yeah, look forward to this coming up on Monday.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that'll be over at thepenaddict.com. You'll be able to see all that information. Brad will have it all up. But, you know, that is a fantastic thing. The most important thing is to donate to St. Jude, however you do it. Yes, please. It is wild right now as we're recording. We're at $76,000.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's been two days. Two days. I think, I believe, if my memory serves, that in the first year we did this, $75,000 was our goal. Yeah. That was the goal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and I think I might have all these numbers wrong, but it seems like we did like 200 and something thousand that first year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was, I think, 312. It was something like that. It really went bananas, like, after the podcast-a-thon, like, in a way that we weren't expecting. Exactly. Things picked up fast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and then a year or two ago we did like eight, right? 700. 700, 800. 700,000.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We've done, the last two years, it's been over 700,000. Yeah. And so who knows where we're going to go this time, but congratulations to all of us. This is a community.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, to you and Steven, I know, but you're like, y'all are the real driving factors behind this, so I'm super proud of y'all and happy to be a participant. All right, let's get into the pins, Myke. Let's do it. We have some fun new products I wanted to talk about today, some for me to just, like, fawn over, and then one in particular I wanted to get your opinion on. I got this sent to me through email, and I was unaware of this. Someone said, I get these emails a lot, Myke. You've probably seen this, but in case you haven't, here's the link. Yes. And a lot of times, yes, I have seen this. This one, I have not seen. It is through Hobonichi, and it is launching with their new planners. September 1st is Hobonichi launch day. They are launching a Hobonichi Pilot Capless fountain pen. So this is your Vanishing Point style fountain pen. I want your initial thoughts on this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was a little confused at first as to what exactly I was looking at.