Something I love doing is helping people. I usually spend a good portion of my time outside of work volunteering or helping with groups that raise money to help others. I also like to put money toward equipment for the marching groups I work with, with the only thing I ask in return being that they show their appreciation by taking care of the equipment and not breaking it. Or at least letting me know if anything breaks so I can fix it and they can continue to have good equipment.
One thing I like to donate to each year is the Yogscast Jingle Jam. Each year the Yogscast, a very large YouTube gaming channel, raises money for various charities. It started when I was in college and couldn’t afford to give much. But I still make sure every year when it comes around I have more to put towards it than the last year.
Their first charity stream was the Christmas Goat Giving Special in 2011. There were 3,615 people who donated $102,514.55 in total. The only charity the money was going toward was Oxfam’s ‘Give a Goat’, which sent goats to third-world nations in Africa to support families and villages.
The next year they decided to have another stream since the first one did so well. Things were a little more impressive and they had more people involved in the process. It was called Honeydew’s Honey Drive. $391,145.70 was raised by 13,389 donators. The first £10,000 went to Oxfam’s ‘Plan Bee’, which provides training and workshops for the manufacture of modern beekeeping equipment for Ethiopian families. The rest went to ‘365 Emergency Fund’, a project dedicated to a relief effort aiding emergency situations worldwide. The real gift of this stream was when Lewis Brindley was wearing a sexy bee costume.
In 2013 they did the Dwarven Dairy Drive. They hit $1,000,000 which was quite a big deal, since they only raised a tenth of that the first year. The month ended with $1,159,746.33 being raised by 47,885 donators. The charities were Games Aid, Little People UK, Oxfam, Special Effect, and War Child.
In 2014 they just called it Jingle Jam 2014 and so far all subsequent years have followed the same format. The first day they raised $115,096.00 which was more than the entire first year. I remember watching that day and I thought it was really cool how far it had come. This was also the year when Lewis –henceforth known as Brewis Ginley– drank a ton of gin while playing Civilization 5 and founded the Glorious Nation of Datlof. The total for the month was $1,104,882.09 from a total of 40,277 donators. The charities were Doctors Without Borders, End Polio Now, Fauna & Flora International, Oxfam, and Special Effect.
For the Jingle Jam 2015 they added some more time on to the streams. They had been only during the evening but since they had so many people to help with the streams at this point there were warm-up streams during the afternoon. This year there were 40,201 donators who raised total of $1,052,881.48 for Cancer Research UK, Doctors Without Borders, Fauna & Flora International, Games Aid, Mental Health Foundation, Oxfam, and Special Effect.
Jingle Jam 2016 had another big start when they raised $284,384.37 on the first day. They also added morning streams to the schedule. By the end of the month they had more than doubled any previous year with $2,577,801.17 being raised by 86,578 donators. The charities were Cancer Research UK, Games Aid, International Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans and Intersex Association, Mental Health Foundation, Special Effect, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Donators could also choose from a list of thousands of additional charities, a new feature started this year and continued in subsequent years.
Jingle Jam 2017 was the biggest year for the stream as of the date of this post. They raised a whopping $5,245,722 from a total of 148,853 donators. $1,464,080.01 of that was raised on just the first day! This was a very exciting year watching the streams, since they beat all their previous records by the fourth day. The charities for the year were Cancer Research UK, International Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans and Intersex Association, Mental Health Foundation, Special Effect, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, and Whale and Dolphin Conversation.
Jingle Jam 2018 had 88,139 donators who raised $3,307,929.36 in total. The charities for the year were Call of Duty Endowment, Cancer Research UK, International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, Mental Health Foundation, Save the Children, Special Effect, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
The charities for this year are Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, Mental Health Foundation, Special Effect, Stand Up To Cancer UK, War Child UK, Whale and Dolphin Conversation, Access Sport, and Call Of Duty Endowment. At the time of me posting this, the stream is just passed $2,300,000 with plenty of time left in the month to get more.
If you want to watch the streams and show your support you can go to twitch.tv/yogscast. They started doing streams all year round a couple years ago so there is always something to watch, in case you are reading this in 2020 or later. Just know, any donations outside of December are not for charity unless they decide to have another charity drive. That being said, I’m not saying not to donate outside of December. They put all their revenue to good use during the year to provide excellent content.
A Life, Ensnared 