Pablove Fundraiser: Help Us Beat Childhood Cancer

Giving back to our greater community is one of our biggest focuses here at Critical Role, and we’re excited to announce our next big fundraising campaign for Sam Riegel‘s favorite charity. The Pablove Foundation is an amazing 501(c)3 charity dedicated to childhood cancer support through improving the lives of children with cancer through the arts, as well as investing in underfunded research projects. We’re putting a call to action to all Critters to help us support this incredible organization — you may win some sweet prizes too!

We have joined forces with our good friend, Blair Herter, to help raise awareness and support for the Pablove Foundation. Blair and his brother, Tommy, will be participating in their second Pablove Across America adventure next month, which is a seven-day marathon bike ride that will lead them all of the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The ride itself is long and arduous, and the riders spend months before the marathon training nonstop. We’re constantly impressed by his fortitude and positive attitude and Blair is most certainly one of our heroes.

UPDATED GOALS

• We hit our very first goal of $20,000 within about 24 hours, which is incredible! Our very own Sam Riegel will run a special Crash Pandas one-shot (Crash Pandas is a one-page RPG created by Grant Howitt, the genius behind Honey Heist) very soon. We’ll announce more details when we have them!
• When we reached our second goal of $50,000, we unlocked the ability to fund one research grant which will be distributed to a credible research team actively working to cure childhood cancer. This is a monumental accomplishment and we’re so thankful to everyone for helping us crush our goals so quickly.
• Now, at $100,000, Sam will host a fireside chat with all of you live on our Twitch channel. This is the first time Sam has ever offered to do a fireside chat and we cannot wait to share this awesomeness with you. At $100k, we will also completely fund the Shutterbugs Summer Camp, week-long summer program hosted by Pablove which has helped children fighting cancer take a much needed break through learning photography, in addition to the funding the research grant.

Please join us in supporting Blair and Tommy Herter by donating to their campaign right now at give.classy.org/teamherter. Blair has a bunch of cool prizes from Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony JUST for Critters that donate. To enter, make a donation of any amount and add in #criticalrole to the donation comments on Blair and Tommy’s fundraising page right here. Blair will randomly select a handful of people to win! Hit the button below and read on to learn more about Blair and Pablove Across America.

We asked Blair a few questions about his epic bicycle journey so that we could share a bit about Blair’s experience with Pablove Across America. We love sharing our own stories with the world and wanted to share a bit of Blair’s story with you.

How long is the Pablove Across America ride from SF to LA?

Blair: This year’s ride is shaping up to be 524 total miles with 28,500 feet of climb, but there are going to be a few surprise “extra effort” options for the more ambitious riders that will add another 50 to 75 miles to the week.  I plan on doing every mile available, so am mentally prepping for 600 or so miles.

Some of the stories have happy endings, some do not, and they all serve to create this bond between extraordinary people doing an extraordinary thing for an extraordinary cause.

Can you explain a bit about what the ride is like? What are you feeling while you’re riding? 

Blair: In a word: indescribable! Seriously, though, it’s very hard to put into words what the experience is like.  Last year’s ride–my first– was a mental and physical test unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and the connections and friendships I made have become some of the most rewarding ones I have in my life.  You basically tear your body apart during the day, then sit around at night baring your soul to these incredible human beings who have all been touched by cancer in some way.  Some of the stories have happy endings, some do not, and they all serve to create this bond between extraordinary people doing an extraordinary thing for an extraordinary cause.

Blair and Tommy Herter participating in Pablove Across America in 2017. (photo courtesy of Blair Herter)

What is it like to go on this incredible journey with your brother? 

Blair: My brother has always been one of the most important people in my life.  As we’ve grown older and taken on new roles as husbands and fathers and working professionals, time together has become increasingly difficult to find.  So, for us, this is one week out of the year where we kind of get to put that stuff to the side–minus the daily family FaceTimes and late night work emails, of course — and just get to ride bikes like we did we when were kids.  It’s so good for the soul.

* Be sure to follow Blair’s epic bike ride from September 30th to October 6th through his Twitter and Instagram updates.  

About the Pablove Foundation

• Pablove Shutterbugs is Pablove’s healing arts education program, a full photography curriculum that is in eight cities across the country – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Austin, New Orleans, New York and Boston, and soon-to-be Houston. To date, Pablove have served nearly 1,500 children and teens going through cancer treatment.
• Powered by Pablove Research Grants is Pablove’s grants program. They award $50,000 seed grants to daring young researchers at the leading edge of their fields. Pablove is often the first funders for many of their researchers, who go on to receive large, multi-year grants from federal sources (NIH, etc). This year they reached $2.5 million in total grant funding.

 

The 2017 Pablove Across America team (photo courtesy of Blair Herter)

Edited on 9/6 to reflect new stretch goals!

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Rachel

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