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Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday. So earlier this year you and I had a photoshoot
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with the brilliant longtime nerdfighter Ashe Walker.
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And I was under the impression this photoshoot existed to get like a semi-professional picture of us
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that we could send out for formal media stuff so we didn't have to keep sending out this picture,
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although it is by far my favorite picture of us.
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But then at the end Ashe was like, “Now make a bunch of funny faces,”
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and Hank, as you know I cannot make funny faces or do anything else that even vaguely resembles acting.
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I am such a bad actor that my cameo in the film adaptation of my book was cut from the movie,
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although they did let me keep my wardrobe, and you're darn right I'm wearing it.
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That's right, Hank, I'm cosplaying Girl's Father right now, the role for which I was inexplicably denied an Oscar.
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But anyway, Ashe told us to make some funny faces, and I tried.
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And then Ashe used those faces to make the 2020 Project for Awesome calendar, which is,
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to borrow a phrase, “a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.”
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Each month, we are transmogrified in great and terrible ways into various animals.
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Lemurs? We got lemurs. Elephants? Heck yes, we become elephants.
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Oh my God, this one is like the trailer for the movie Cats, only self-aware and for the benefit of charity.
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You can get the 2020 calendar right now at projectforawesome.com/donate,
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where there are also lots of other amazing perks.
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My favorite is our spouses' incredible spinoff podcast Dear Katherine and Sarah,
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but we also have a Project for Awesome poster, a Project for Awesome t-shirt, a commemorative coin.
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You can also get a limited edition signed vinyl of The Anthropocene Reviewed.
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And also, you know how the United States continues to mint one-cent coins,
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even though they cost more than one cent to make
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and do not facilitate the exchange of goods and services, which is the point of currency?
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Well, at the DFTBA warehouse in Missoula, Montana, we're crushing hundreds of these reprehensible coins
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and turning them into beautiful souvenirs for you and/or your friends.
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And most importantly, lest the cost of producing and shipping any physical perks you buy,
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100% of the proceeds go to charity.
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During this first half of the Project for Awesome, we are raising money
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for Save the Children and Partners in Health.
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Awkward transition to the serious part of the video.
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I think it's really important to understand where that money is going and the good that it's doing.
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I mean, in the last ten years, the Project for Awesome has raised over 10 million dollars for charity,
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and to cite just one example of what's happened in that decade,
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Partners in Health has been able to help build and support the Butaro Cancer Center in Rwanda.
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70% of cancer cases occur in poor countries, and because access to care is so difficult,
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outcomes are far worse.
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For example, in the United States, many types of childhood leukemia have cure rates over 80%,
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while in poor communities, those same cancers are virtual death sentences.
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And the Butaro Cancer Center offers real hope, and it hasn't just treated thousands of people with cancer.
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It has also helped to train many healthcare workers in oncology.
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Save the Children, meanwhile, has helped reduce stunting due to malnutrition and helped to build
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safe places for kids in refugee camps amid the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.
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PIH recently released a video about a Sierra Leonean woman named Mabel
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who was diagnosed with HIV while she was pregnant.
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“That day, I felt the world is over for me.”
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But Partners in Health helped her get access to anti-retroviral therapy
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and eventually to become a community health worker, one of over 11,000 supported by PIH around the world.
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Now Mabel helps people with HIV and tuberculosis get the care they need and reduce the risk of transmission.
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And because she's paid a salary, she's been able to send her kids to school,
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and that is the kind of generational change we're trying to support with the Project for Awesome.
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Also, right now every dollar you donate will be matched by nerdfighters who've contributed to a matching fund
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AND by donors to PIH and Save the Children,
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so every dollar you donate counts as $4 to those amazing charities.
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So yeah, go to projectforawesome.com/donate now to donate.
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The P4A will officially begin on Friday at noon Eastern Time.
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There will be a 48 hour livestream extravaganza at projectforawesome.com/live.
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Hank, I will see you then.
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P.S. Hank, we are going on tour in January. Also, for charity.
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Link in the doobly-doo for tickets. Bye!
