Tag: Wildering

Alas, your ever-loving blue-eyed Editor-in-Chief (that’s me) got pummeled by life changes this month– new house, new job, and of course Midwest Furfest, so posts have been a bit sparse here.

But let’s talk about Furfest 2017, shall we? It was huge this year! From Kodi’s summary post:

In 2017 we had a little over 7,000 attendees on-site, and we were incredibly humbled to see over 8,700 folks attend this year’s event from the United States, Canada and all over the world to help make this year’s event very special.

For those at the closing ceremonies, it was pretty obvious that our executive team on stage (myself included) had a hard time keeping ourselves composed. With so many additional investments in new things like the convention center, and in building a solid ‘back-office’ foundation for the organization, we weren’t sure how much we would be able to donate to our charity.

But that didn’t matter, because our community shined very bright, and demonstrated again to the world that while we may be silly and creative, we are also spectacularly generous.

During closing ceremonies alone, the audience rushed up to donate over $12,500 – providing a total donation of $85,000 to C.R.I.S.P. The funds will be used by the charity to help people all over the Chicagoland area help keep their animals; offsetting financial challenges due to illness, injury or other situations that could otherwise cause an animal to be sent to a shelter or euthanized.

Of course, AnthroCon will probably leap-frog over MFF in attendance this coming summer– that’s how these things go– but either way it’s amazing to see furry fans coming out in such numbers to do such amazing things at a time when so many people are stressed and doing their best to cope. I was at the closing ceremonies myself, and I can report first hand that there was a lot of love and the best of humanity in that room.

Rock on, furries. 2018 is going to be amazing!

-The Gneech