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  • Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday. So earlier this year you and I had a photoshoot

  • with the brilliant longtime nerdfighter Ashe Walker.

  • And I was under the impression this photoshoot existed to get like a semi-professional picture of us

  • that we could send out for formal media stuff so we didn't have to keep sending out this picture,

  • although it is by far my favorite picture of us.

  • But then at the end Ashe was like, “Now make a bunch of funny faces,”

  • and Hank, as you know I cannot make funny faces or do anything else that even vaguely resembles acting.

  • I am such a bad actor that my cameo in the film adaptation of my book was cut from the movie,

  • although they did let me keep my wardrobe, and you're darn right I'm wearing it.

  • That's right, Hank, I'm cosplaying Girl's Father right now, the role for which I was inexplicably denied an Oscar.

  • But anyway, Ashe told us to make some funny faces, and I tried.

  • And then Ashe used those faces to make the 2020 Project for Awesome calendar, which is,

  • to borrow a phrase, “a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.”

  • Each month, we are transmogrified in great and terrible ways into various animals.

  • Lemurs? We got lemurs. Elephants? Heck yes, we become elephants.

  • Oh my God, this one is like the trailer for the movie Cats, only self-aware and for the benefit of charity.

  • You can get the 2020 calendar right now at projectforawesome.com/donate,

  • where there are also lots of other amazing perks.

  • My favorite is our spouses' incredible spinoff podcast Dear Katherine and Sarah,

  • but we also have a Project for Awesome poster, a Project for Awesome t-shirt, a commemorative coin.

  • You can also get a limited edition signed vinyl of The Anthropocene Reviewed.

  • And also, you know how the United States continues to mint one-cent coins,

  • even though they cost more than one cent to make

  • and do not facilitate the exchange of goods and services, which is the point of currency?

  • Well, at the DFTBA warehouse in Missoula, Montana, we're crushing hundreds of these reprehensible coins

  • and turning them into beautiful souvenirs for you and/or your friends.

  • And most importantly, lest the cost of producing and shipping any physical perks you buy,

  • 100% of the proceeds go to charity.

  • During this first half of the Project for Awesome, we are raising money

  • for Save the Children and Partners in Health.

  • Awkward transition to the serious part of the video.

  • I think it's really important to understand where that money is going and the good that it's doing.

  • I mean, in the last ten years, the Project for Awesome has raised over 10 million dollars for charity,

  • and to cite just one example of what's happened in that decade,

  • Partners in Health has been able to help build and support the Butaro Cancer Center in Rwanda.

  • 70% of cancer cases occur in poor countries, and because access to care is so difficult,

  • outcomes are far worse.

  • For example, in the United States, many types of childhood leukemia have cure rates over 80%,

  • while in poor communities, those same cancers are virtual death sentences.

  • And the Butaro Cancer Center offers real hope, and it hasn't just treated thousands of people with cancer.

  • It has also helped to train many healthcare workers in oncology.

  • Save the Children, meanwhile, has helped reduce stunting due to malnutrition and helped to build

  • safe places for kids in refugee camps amid the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

  • PIH recently released a video about a Sierra Leonean woman named Mabel

  • who was diagnosed with HIV while she was pregnant.

  • That day, I felt the world is over for me.”

  • But Partners in Health helped her get access to anti-retroviral therapy

  • and eventually to become a community health worker, one of over 11,000 supported by PIH around the world.

  • Now Mabel helps people with HIV and tuberculosis get the care they need and reduce the risk of transmission.

  • And because she's paid a salary, she's been able to send her kids to school,

  • and that is the kind of generational change we're trying to support with the Project for Awesome.

  • Also, right now every dollar you donate will be matched by nerdfighters who've contributed to a matching fund

  • AND by donors to PIH and Save the Children,

  • so every dollar you donate counts as $4 to those amazing charities.

  • So yeah, go to projectforawesome.com/donate now to donate.

  • The P4A will officially begin on Friday at noon Eastern Time.

  • There will be a 48 hour livestream extravaganza at projectforawesome.com/live.

  • Hank, I will see you then.

  • P.S. Hank, we are going on tour in January. Also, for charity.

  • Link in the doobly-doo for tickets. Bye!

Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday. So earlier this year you and I had a photoshoot

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