At the end of 2010, I urged poker players to send me write-ups about their favorite charities in order to encourage year-end giving and paint a broader picture of just what the non-profit sector looks like and how many diverse opportunities there are for charitable giving. Quite a few well-known poker players responded, but at the time I chose not to publish their responses. I wanted Cheque-Raising For Charity to be about the average, workaday poker player, not the superstar celebrities. Now I feel enough time has passed that today I can present Cheque-Raising for Charity: Celebrity Edition! Read on as your favorite poker celebrities describe their favorite non-profit organizations in their own words, and please remember to give generously!
David Williams- Share Your Soles
Many people don’t appreciate just how valuable feet can be. Millions of youth in poor countries around the world destroy their feet for lack of comfortable, protective footwear. Too often, minor cuts and injuries become infected and gangrenous, wasting a perfectly good pair of feet. If only these impoverished young people realized the economic opportunity that a fine set of toes represents and had the means to safeguard this valuable asset! We could strike a major blow against world poverty.
Share Your Soles is a non-profit organization that collects donated shoes from around the world and distributes them to charities and orphanages in impoverished countries. Please contribute, cash, shoes, or both as your budget allows. I’m a sole man- are you?
Sam Grizzle- Fathers’ Rights Inc.
The American family court system is broken. What other explanation could there be, when so many fathers are denied custody of their children simply because of their penchant for drinking away the family’s rent money? How can we be expected to pay child support when we’re already supporting ten-thousand-dollar-a-day gambling habits?
If you happen to be one of those rare fathers with disposable income, please contribute to Fathers’ Rights Inc. Or just send the money directly to me. My rent is due, and so am I… for a craps heater!
Josh Fields- First Person Plural
Dissociative Identity Disorder, more commonly known as “multiple personality disorder”, is a grossly misunderstood condition, not to mention a personally taxing one. You try sharing a body with a magazine editor, a repentant sinner, a compulsive liar, a virulent racist, and a geriatric card sharp. That’s why I support First Person Plural. They provide resources for people living with DID and spread awareness. Take it from us: living with DID isn’t easy, and First Person Plural can help.
Daniel Negreanu- Locks of Love
Locks of Love is a great organization that provides hope and dignity for people fighting cancer. They collect donated hair to make wigs for people undergoing radiation therapy who have lost their own hair.
Most people who donate are women with long, flowing locks that they can tie off into an easily-snipped ponytail. That’s all well and good for patients who want long, straight hair, but what about those who would prefer a curly or kinky ‘do? Don’t African-Americans get chemo too? (Don’t worry, I have black friends, so I can say that LMAO!)
That’s why I shave and donate all of the short, curly hair that I can. It’s only fair! So if you’ve got hair to spare, please make a donation today.
John Racener- Drunks Against MADD Mothers
Political correctness is out of control in this country, and there’s no better proof than Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). These self-righteous hags want to limit everyone’s freedom to have a good time because a few bad seeds can’t handle their liquor. While I’ve got news for them: some people can’t chew gum and walk! Does that mean we should ban chewing gum? How is that fair to those of us who can chew gum and win $5,000,000 in the World Series of Poker?
Thankfully someone is standing up to this MADDness. Please support these brave patriots in their fight to defend a man’s right to have a few beers when he goes out with his friends. What am I supposed to do, call a cab like a poor person?
Chad Batista- Farhat Museum of Modern Arab Art
Can the subaltern speak? Naim Farhat’s sublime collection (re)presents a compelling rejoinder to Gayatri Spivak’s infamous interrogatory. The Farhat Art Museum is not so much a presentation as a (sub)textual subversion of the dominant Western hegemonic colonialist paradigm of artistic (re)collection. In its rejection of the always-overdetermined caricatures of Arab culture(s) in Western media, the Museum upholds the inherent (in)dignity of an op- and re-pressed people.
I encourage errbody to support the Museum and its contestation of Western media stereotypes that portray Arabs as a bunch of fkn crrooks.
Millions of motherfuckers in America and around the fucking world suffer from this fucking syndrome, which renders us un-fucking-able to control our fucking obscene outbursts. No matter how goddamn brilliant every other fucking word out of our fucking mouths is or how many fucking fools we stack, some motherfuckers just can’t get beyond the constant fucking profanity. This shit is fucked up.
The folks at Tourettes Action are some heroic motherfuckers. They’re fighting a good fucking fight, and they need your support. So come on, you broke motherfuckers, make a fucking donation. Or don’t. It’s whatever.
I have multiple personalities. And so do I.
I for one am outraged. As the founder and director of Citizens Against Raising Poker Players’ Profiles (CARPPP), I can only state that your efforts have set us back decades. Your promotion of charitable giving by poker players will be the end of our organization. Perhaps you would care to correct this damage by sending a check to our organization. If it is easier, you can just transfer a few bucks to us on Stars (IM me for our ID) as our lastest fundraising effort associated with the 60 billionth hand did not work out as planned.
Phil Hellmuth was going to contribute to “Put A Bad Beat On Cancer”, but refrained because he absolutely never gets his money in behind. /shrug
hahah, I lol’d, 5 stars.