Action for Boston Community Development on Cascade Hall

A Professor

June 11, 2020 1:23 PM

Charity Sign Ups by A Professor

One morning, a post appeared on the bulletin board in Cascade Hall. Clearly a professor had had feelings about the way that students might best organize themselves and gone so far as to give them a place to do it. The fact that it was written in several languages might have been a clue, but it certainly didn't limit it to only one or another professor, so there was no saying for sure.

In any case, the poster had large text at the top and space for students to leave their names in grouped order below. Since students could help with more than one charity or cause if they wanted to and that would be up to groups themselves to figure out, there was plenty of space for many students in each cluster, and space for organizers to include information at the top of each section. Posted in English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Greek, the poster read:

Charity Fair Sign Ups

Please use this space to list the charity or cause you will be working with for the fair so that other students may sign up. Please also include whether you already have staff sponsorship or whether you still need someone. If you are interested in participating, leave your name in the relevant section.

Happy fundraising!

OOC: Organizers, please make sure you still host a meeting elsewhere for students to talk about what they want to do! Signing up here is meant for ease of organization and to help people know what's going on with whom, where, and what, but does not satisfy the need to actually talk it out IC. You'll need to sign up here OR post a meeting.

For more information, see here.

Subthreads:

Helping the Victims of Violent Crime by Heinrich Hexenmeister with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen, Evelyn Stones

Yay werewolves, go werewolves by Theo Spurn with Josephine Clyde, Anya Delachene

We are AWASH in Harassment by Lyssa Fitzgerald with Felipe De Matteo, Gary Harper, Evelyn Stones, Philippe Delachene

We call this "culture." by Leonor De Matteo

Historic Buildings and Gardens by Sylvia Mordue with Caitlin Pierce

Action for Boston Community Development by Mab with Janis Rosemary Silver

AAAAAA by Ruby Brockert with Jasmine Delachene, Jezebel Reed-Fischer

22 A Professor Charity Sign Ups 1424 A Professor 1 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

June 11, 2020 2:44 PM

Helping the Victims of Violent Crime by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich had walked by the bulletin several times since it went up. Each time, he had stopped and reread one of the posters (he alternated between the German one and the English one), and then he'd walk away with a pensive look on his face. There were any number of options available, several of which called to him loudly, and the difficulty was really deciding on which to follow. On the one hand, the entire thing with Evelyn and her father and CJ brought child abuse, foster care, and teenage parenting to the forefront. On the other hand, he didn't want to call attention to the terrible things that had happened in his girlfriend's life, and maybe she would want a little bit of distance from those causes, rather than having her boyfriend organize a fair booth about them.

On that note, he also didn't want to draw attention to his own family situation out of fear that something could turn back on them if people noticed a connection.

So he spent some time looking at more innocuous causes like feeding the hungry, or protecting endangered dragons, or sheltering the homeless, and while they were all good and noble causes, none of those really spoke to him.

The one he kept coming back to was the one he also kept shying away from as far too dangerous, far too personal.

And the voice of the little green puppet in Star Wars kept running through his mind. “Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger… anger leads to hate… hate leads to suffering.”

Was his fear going to be responsible for additional suffering that his fundraising could have helped ease? Was his fear going to compound his parents' sins and make him complicit in not helping those who he could help, who he wanted to help?

It was not.

Today, Heinrich moved toward the sign-ups purposefully, with a quill already in hand. He added his details to a new open section.

Bringing Back the Light: Helping the Victims, Families, and Communities Harmed by the Dark Arts
Organized by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Does not have Staff Sponsorship

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Helping the Victims of Violent Crime 1414 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

June 11, 2020 2:58 PM

You'd know. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

On the whole, Johana Leonie didn't hold Hilda's family history against her. Truth be told, she forgot about it most of the time. Not because it was the sort of thing that could easily be forgotten, but because her friend was not the same person as her parents and the Hexenmeisters from the newspaper seemed entirely disjointed, conceptually, from the Hexenmeisters on the class roster. So perhaps it was that Johana Leonie was feeling bitter and angry most of the time these days, or perhaps it was that she hadn't really been thrilled to be spurned by the older Hexenmeister sibling (she'd never made a move, but she felt like she'd been a mostly obvious choice of partner for him and he'd hardly even spoken to her), or perhaps it was something else, but Johana Leonie almost laughed when she read Heinrich's post on the charity bulletin.

She immediately felt bad for thinking of laughing. As much as she might be able to point a finger at Heinrich, Hilda, and Hans' parents and say that they were exactly the sort of people Heinrich was talking about here, and that the very least the family could do now was try to help the victims of such forces, victims like the ones the Zauberhexens had helped over the years, she also knew that the young siblings were also the victims themselves. They were the ones suffering. It was self-flagellation that made Johana Leonie unsure of signing up to participate then.

She had come to the board hoping to find something about medical studies, healing research, etc., but found this. It seemed like a close to perfect fit, and she could probably use German more than she'd get to otherwise, which would mean less struggling. Plus, she doubted Friederike Albert would be terribly excited about this one, so that was good. She'd heard that he was thinking about a different one, but she didn't want to think about that at all. Her good name might be ruined here soon and she didn't want to dwell on that until she had to. Instead, she just listed her name under Heinrich's, admitting to herself with each letter that she was not a good a person as she liked to think she was.

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen You'd know. 1432 0 5

Theo Spurn

June 12, 2020 5:52 AM

Yay werewolves, go werewolves by Theo Spurn

Charity! Charity was nice and it was a good thing to do good. Sometimes you got fuzzy clothes out of it if you shopped at Good Will, which Theo did a lot.

He had not paid much attention to the Headmaster’s speech at the Opening Feast because Stanley had been there and Anya (and Wally too, but he had been further away and Wally was rarely a distraction anyway). He could not remember whether he had said anything more than this thing was going to exist but hey, here it was existing, so that proved him right. If that was what he had said. He may have been more informative.

Anyway, they were writing down charities that they liked supporting, and Theo didn’t really remember what happened with that information, but he knew what he liked and supported so he gave it a column on the list. Maybe the one with the most people signed up got a donation or something? That seemed a bit unfair though because it shouldn’t be a competition. All charities were nice and deserved supporting.

He added his own favourite, along with his details.

Ly-CAN (werewolf stuff) - it had longer more proper words to describe itself, but they did werewolf stuff, so werewolf stuff was a good enough description as far as Theo was concerned. Theo Spurn, Pecari 2nd year.

13 Theo Spurn Yay werewolves, go werewolves 1476 0 5

Lyssa Fitzgerald

June 12, 2020 7:16 AM

We are AWASH in Harassment by Lyssa Fitzgerald

Lyssa had thought long and hard about what to support and how. She loved the idea of a charity fair, but she didn’t know how best to go about it. She had a million things she wanted to support. LGBTQI issues were an initial idea, but she was pretty sure someone else would have that covered. Lyssa could help with it, but she didn’t want to lead that effort. That left her with Muggle Rights or Harassment.

Lyssa didn’t want to pull focus from Cleo’s consent campaign but she also wanted to continue the pressure on this. Even if it only changed one person’s actions, that was worth it. Lyssa had become fairly adamant about the work, but Cleo wasn’t planning on starting her own organization so Lyssa would have to figure out another one to support. Muggle Rights though were obviously close to her heart and her experience. Then again, so was harassment. Lyssa had been going back and forth, until she had talked with Felipe. After talking with Felipe and her own interactions Lyssa had decided that she would continue the Consent Campaign for the charity fair, but in her own way.

Lyssa had spent the day in the library looking up information on different organizations, checking and rechecking the facts and the activities of the organizations. She wanted one that did education for the general public, policy proposals to the US Wizarding world and supplied tactics that women everywhere could use. There were many organizations that did one or two, but only a few did all three, and oddly, only one had information on transgender or non-binary harassment. Lyssa thought this oversight would have been corrected by this time. It was after all modern day, not the 1990s anymore.

Lyssa walked up to the list as soon as she saw it drawing out her quill.

Association of Witches and Wizards Against Sexual Harassment (AWASH)
Organized by Lyssa Fitzgerald, Teppenpaw Year 5
No Staff Sponsorship Yet

Lyssa wasn’t sure who her staff sponsor could be, but she figured that there were probably some that would be onboard with this organization.

Now she just needed to figure out things to do at a fair to help raise money and awareness.

41 Lyssa Fitzgerald We are AWASH in Harassment 1421 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

June 12, 2020 6:39 PM

Is that a thing I can help with? by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe felt a bit like a fool trying to sign up for this one. He wanted to help, and he didn't mind his name being on there, but he felt a bit like he was playing pretend. He couldn't possibly matter enough to make a difference. He couldn't possibly be the right person to try. He probably looked a lot more like the people who harassed people than the people who were being harassed in most cases. That was a terrible thought. Still, he thought that Lyssa seemed like a smart person who would be able to tell him if he was being crappy. He didn't exactly want to put the onus on her to do that, but what else could he do but try?

In any case, trying was literally the least he could do at all ever. Plus, while Felipe would certainly be helping with Zara's booth and undoubtedly would put most of his work into that, he wasn't doing a whole lot else. Putting his work into both of these two causes sways easy enough to commit to. So with that it was decided, and Felipe De Matteo was one of the first names under Lyssa's posting.

22 Felipe De Matteo Is that a thing I can help with? 1434 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

June 12, 2020 7:04 PM

We call this "culture." by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor was not very interested in helping with the charity fair. She was excited enough for the fair itself - fundraisers like this would undoubtedly include some good fun - but that didn't get her quite to the point of being excited about the fair itself. Still, it would be good for her reputation to be involved, so that's exactly what she was going to do. And if she had to do it, she was not going to be doing it in English.

She'd done her research, though admittedly not very much of it, and she was pretty sure she'd found something that would work. It would probably satisfy her need to value magical pretty for Jeremy's sake, and her own at this point, while also making her parents happy should they find out anything more about any of this, and Felipe wouldn't be able to complain particularly vocally. She'd picked the foundation that had supplied most of the tutors who had worked with her and Felipe over the years. Admittedly, they primarily worked with pureblood youth, as those were the only ones whose families would have known about them. They also were based out of Mexico and their service language was Spanish unless a family requested to learn another language as well. All that to say that it was about the only cause Leonor was really passionate about at this point. Plus, sure, there were probably a lot of young wizards and witches who would love some experience and a paid internship fund would be great. Or money for even younger wizards and witches who would benefit from the services of the foundation.

So Leonor posted her charity and waited to see who signed up:

Socios de la Comunidad Mágica (Magical Community Partners)

An organization which provides private tutors to magical youth and opportunities for young adults to travel and learn. Charity language is Spanish, but meetings will be hosted in English if required.

Meeting to come after interest is gauged.

Groundskeeper sponsored.

22 Leonor De Matteo We call this "culture." 1471 0 5

Gary Harper

June 12, 2020 7:49 PM

This is a good cause by Gary Harper

Gary stood before the charity sheets. He had very briefly thought about leading one, but he had plenty of other things he needed to be focusing on at the moment. Also, the only charity that he could have though of was the Bodhana group, a Muggle organization that used tabletop gaming as a therapeutic method for dealing with sexual assault offenders and victims. He wasn't sure if supporting a Muggle organization would work out though. Plus, he had recently learned he was bad at leading things. So, he'd decided to just help out with one or two.

As such, he found himself looking over the options the board presented. He spotted Heinrich's quickly and put his name under it. Heinrich was going to do some real life paladining, in a way that was more supportive than simply smiting the evil in the world. This was good. Hopefully he could help somehow.

Then he spotted AWASH. Interesting, that might actually be a magical version of Bodhana at some level. He moved to sign up for it, then notice who was organizing it. That gave him just a moment's pause. Lyssa? Hmm.. Lyssa had been one of the girls that Evelyn had listed as a 'potential available bachelorette'. Her biggest fault with the girl was that they didn't 'know each other well'. It had seemed like a reasonable problem what with her being in a different house and class tier. There wasn't much chance for causal interaction, but here was an opportunity. He could do some good and maybe get to know Lyssa a little better. What could go wrong? He signed his name and headed off to get back to that good ol' Arithmancy studying.

2 Gary Harper This is a good cause 1404 0 5

Evelyn Stones

June 12, 2020 8:42 PM

They need it. by Evelyn Stones

Heinrich's charity made Evelyn smile. She probably would have helped no matter what it was that he picked just because she liked him, but it was exciting to see him taking such a firm good wolf step away from the direction of his parents. Victims of crimes . . . well, Evelyn could speak to the fact that the legal system was not very helpful, at least until recently. She couldn't imagine how hard it must be to have experienced a truly violent crime and then also have to deal with the legal system. Although they probably worked better for those people.

Heinrich had mentioned the charity and some of his thoughts to Evelyn before she'd seen the post, and he seemed. . . . she wasn't sure what the right word was. It seemed like a heavy decision for him. She could understand that, especially with the family connections that made these things a bit scarier for him in general. Again, she couldn't imagine. She was never going to be notable for being a Stones, except in the fact that her paternal family line was a strong pureblood one. That level of anonymity had been almost guaranteed until Alexander Mason came onto the scene. It was weird now, for sure. But still, it wasn't like her family name made her notorious if the only other people who had heard of her father were related to him.

The only thing left to consider was her workload, but Evelyn was confident that she could manage all her moving pieces. Truth be told, she hadn't slept as well as she did when she was busy in a long time, and it felt good to keep it up. Plus, Sonora was a small school and most of her commitments were in settings with people she cared about, so it wasn't all bad. Spending time with Heinrich, for example, was always nice. So she added her name, just her own name, to Heinrich's sign up sheet:

Evelyn

22 Evelyn Stones They need it. 1422 0 5

Evelyn Stones

June 12, 2020 8:54 PM

Feeling awash. by Evelyn Stones

Gary's name got there first and so help him if he tried to date Lyssa, Evelyn might resort to murder.

That aside, she remembered the feeling in her stomach at the Ball, when she'd seen Cleo's sash. She'd been angry. She'd wanted to rip it away and scream at the girl. To shout about how unfair it was that even that night, of all nights, Evelyn had to think about consent and people who didn't wait for it. It wasn't fair. But what was more unfair than that was having all those angry feelings and directing them towards a brave young lady. Evelyn hadn't gotten to know Cleo particularly well, although they'd been in Gardening Club since Evelyn first came to Sonora. Still, Cleo was kind to her, and she'd seemed so sad after . . . everything that happened to her. There was once, sitting on the fountain in the Gardens, when Evelyn was going to try to tell her that she understood a little bit. But the conversation didn't go that way and she never got to. She didn't exactly regret that, but she did wonder what a difference it might've made for either of them.

Now, all that she could do was be braver than she'd been the day before. She didn't exactly identify as a 'victim' in the sense of being someone that this charity might benefit. At the same time, she knew she had some amount of perspective to bring. She probably wouldn't share any of it, but it meant she was coming from a different place. She was coming from a place where this mattered. And Lyssa was running it (run away, Gary, you're gonna get stabbed) which would give Evelyn both the opportunity to get to know her better. That was important both because she was Parker's sister and because she was Ness' . . . friend. And because she just seemed super cool. So she added her name to Lyssa's post and promptly wrote this new commitment down in her planner, for fear of forgetting another thing.

Evelyn

22 Evelyn Stones Feeling awash. 1422 0 5

Sylvia Mordue

June 18, 2020 9:03 AM

Historic Buildings and Gardens by Sylvia Mordue

CW - homophobia, implied racism

Sylvia had considered her options for charities carefully. There were several things she regarded as perfectly worthy causes but knew there would be dissension and disagreement on. Part of her was tempted, of course. If someone like Ness McLeod decided to start shouting, hexing or vandalising, well then, surely the gloves would be off and whatever rainbow freak show the Unnamables were running would become an open target - newt’s eye for newt’s eye and all that.

Except that Sylvia neither wanted to be drawn into a brawl nor have some deranged liberal screaming in her face. It was the kind of thing that ruined an afternoon.

Whilst it was utterly unfair that people like Ness could champion any cause whilst Sylvia would be attacked for doing the same thing, she also wasn’t sure she wanted to be the one to be martyred for a cause. If someone was to show that Sonora fought back against that kind of thing, let it be Caitlin. They’d named her prefect after all. Her brother was marrying into the Brockerts. Sylvia wasn’t going to take on the entirety of Headmaster Brockert’s staff when he himself apparently lacked the inclination or backbone too, and when no one around here saw fit to reward her for her attitude. However, nor did she want to back down so utterly and thoroughly as to choose wounded kneazles or the like.

Instead, she had chosen something perfectly respectable that championed perfectly proper morals without directly opposing whatever the liberals were shouting about (taking away Sylvia’s rights to free speech so they could say what they wanted, freeing house elves, giving handouts to Muggleborns - whatever it was this week). She would be supporting the Magical House and Garden Preservation Fund. The charity was definitely proper as several of the people on its board of directors ran in the right sorts of political and social circles, and obviously preserving beautiful historic houses was an important part of wizarding heritage, as well as giving people like Sylvia and her family nice places to visit on the weekends. Their garden open days were a real highlight in the spring and summer social calendar.

She wasn’t going to say that no one sane could object because, whilst true, the very crux of her problem was that she was amongst insane people. She was sure they would find some way to froth at the mouth and take offence at this. Buildings weren’t people, or something. Or had been built by bad people. Well a) that was highly subjective and b) not the building’s fault. If people like Zara Jackson and Ness McLeod wanted to go around preserving bits of history pertaining to people like them then no one was stopping them. If people like them had never done enough to be part of history or to own historical buildings, then it wasn’t fair to take it out on those who had.

She surveyed the charity list in the hall, rolling her eyes in disgust that someone in this school was actually crazy enough to choose the ‘Save the Werewolves’ brigade - save the rest of them from werewolves certainly. She could understand funding that. Silver bullets were expensive. But that definitely wasn’t what that was about. Some of the others were the sorts of things you couldn’t object to, saving the victims of this, that and the other but none of it was exactly coffee morning conversation topics. She added her charity’s details to the list, confident of wide ranging support. Obviously all her Gardenias would sign up but she also rather suspected she was going to be a bastion of good taste for anyone who’d prefer to help with something a little more refined.

13 Sylvia Mordue Historic Buildings and Gardens 1413 0 5

Mab

June 18, 2020 9:21 AM

Action for Boston Community Development by Mab

Mab walked up to the sign-up sheet, feeling a mix of determination and irritation. She still wasn't quite sure why she was doing this. She was not a leader, not a social person, not even particularly charitable. But if people were going to be just handing out money at the end of the school year to charities, she wanted this one represented.

And since no one else was going to, she had to do it herself.

So she wrote the details down on a new heading.

Action for Boston Community Development

Mab looked at it, and it just looked like words. Nothing about the charity's name sounded urgent or pulled at heart strings or had any other kind of draw that might convince people that this what where they wanted to put their time and effort and coins. The name 'Boston' might turn some heads - that's how she'd ended up working with the Jacksons' booth - but the rest was just all too generic. It didn't say it saved lives - though it did. It didn't say if helped poor and disadvantaged kids and their families - though it did. It didn't say this was how Mab had gotten Christmas gifts on the bad years. (Santa wasn't a guy who lived on the north pole. He was a guy who worked on Warren Street.)

Nothing about those five words really spelled out that they were responsible for getting her and Mom through some of their roughest patches. ABCD had come in when Mab was still little, the first time she'd been put into foster care. They'd gotten Mom back on her feet, gotten Mab back home. Gotten Mom in a good enough position that she didn't need their help anymore.

Until she did. And then it all fell apart so very quickly, too quickly for the paperwork to go through to get assistance again, or at least, not a full case. They'd gotten some emergency funds, enough to get the terrible apartment instead of being homeless, but the terrible apartment had been too terrible, and Mab had gotten taken away again anyway.

That wasn't the charity's fault though. ABCD was why Mab hadn't been taken away sooner.

She wanted to thank them for that. So she was hosting a booth. And she was trying to think of how to make it more appealing for people just scanning over the lists of charities available to work with.

She added a few more words, looked it over again, and nodded. She walked away.

Action for Boston Community Development: Feed the Hungry, Help the Homeless, Giving Warmth, Hope, and Opportunities to Those Who Need it the Most
Organized by: Mab (Mallory Beales, 2nd Year)
Does Not Have Staff Sponsorship Yet

1 Mab Action for Boston Community Development 1473 0 5

Ruby Brockert

June 18, 2020 4:34 PM

AAAAAA by Ruby Brockert

As a Teppenpaw, a charity fair was right up Ruby's alley. Helping others was something that was very important. The problem was picking which cause to support. Initially, she wanted to do something with epilepsy research and education. Particularly something that stressed the importance of a timely diagnosis. Ruby was certain that would have made a difference with regards to Sapphire's well-being, both physical and psychological. Of course, Topaz would have done something to affect the third year's psychological well-being anyway. She had with Allegra, who didn't have epilepsy.

However, Sapphire did not want Ruby to do an epilepsy charity. The Crotalus did not want people to find out she had a medical condition in case they mocked her for it or thought she was stupid or defective or unmarriageable, words she'd heard many a time. Ruby would not necessarily have to say that she was doing it because of Sapphire but the third year was worried people would figure it out and she had to respect her younger sister's wishes.

Which meant that Ruby had to find something else. However, lately, her little cousin Miles had been developing an awful lot of allergies. He had indoor ones, outdoor ones, and, worst of all, food ones. Aunt Madeleine was having an awful hard time finding things that the two year old could-and would-eat. So, Ruby had decided to sponsor an allergy and asthma related charity. The two conditions went hand in hand and her cousin Owen was afflicted by the latter. Aunt Madeleine was also worried that Miles would develop asthma as he got older. Even if he didn't, his life was not going to be easy.

She approached the sign up sheet and wrote down her information.

Allergy and Asthma Awareness and Advocacy: Supporting allergy and asthma research and advocating for sufferers.
Organized by Ruby Brockert
Sponsored by Headmaster Brockert.

Once signed up, Ruby scanned the list of other charities. She was unsure about whether or not she wanted to contribute to any others, not because she did not care but because she was unsure if she would have time. Still, the Teppenpaw was curious about what others would choose to support. She knew that, unfortunately, there were some charities that others were planning that were too controversial for her to publically support. Of course, Ruby really didn't especially want to support werewolves or a muggle cultural center. In the latter case, she felt there were more worthy causes such as Heinrich's victims of violent crime charity or Peyton's anti-child abuse organization. Of course, although the Teppenpaw rather agreed with the goals of it, the same could be said for Sylvia Mordue's historical building charity which Ruby was sure her sister and cousin would be a part of. However, in Allegra's case-Topaz helping people was about as likely as Ruby playing Quidditch- the seventh year hoped she would help with AAAAAA as well. Miles was her cousin too.

On the plus side, Ruby already had Jasper on board. Maybe Esme would join her too. The Teppenpaw was sure that while her cousin was in favor of historical building preservation-which the second year could also join if so inclined-she probably wouldn't want to be around Topaz.

11 Ruby Brockert AAAAAA 1405 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

June 25, 2020 1:45 PM

-Choo! by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine had quickly maxed out her three charity booths that she was allowed to join. Since she didn't feel a need to study a lot for her RATS, and clearly dating was off the cards now, and she didn't have any extra duties as a prefect or Head Girl, so she was filling up her social calendar with charity booth meetings. Peyton's was an easy choice. She was both Jasmine's best friend, and the cause was important. Dorian's was the next one she joined, because that impacted some of her family members (including Ellie who was Jasmine's sister, even if that was by no means legal or official).

And Ruby's booth was her third. Like with Peyton's, it came to her attention because it was being run by one of her friends, and Jasmine had enjoyed working with her during the challenges a few years ago, but held it because it was a good cause. Lots of people had allergies or asthma or both, and they totally had as much right to breath as anyone else.

So she put her name down under that heading, and hoped nothing else got started that she was going to want to join because she was fresh out of spots now.

Jasmine Delachene, Year 7, Crotalus

1 Jasmine Delachene -Choo! 1397 0 5

Janis Rosemary Silver

June 26, 2020 7:28 AM

Sounds like home by Janis Rosemary Silver

Janis walked up to the sign up sheet. She saw Fitzgerald after one of the charities and almost put her name down and stopped herself. She didn't really understand AWASH. More than a few other students seemed to, but if Janis got found out that she joined just to gain the trust of... she looked closely at the name, Lyssa, and she got found out, it would not be a good way to start as a friend and sister.

Maybe I'll go by the booth and donate thought Janis. She was sure her father wouldn't mind giving her some money to donate to different groups. After all, he was a business man now right? That's how these things worked?

Janis scanned the list. She recognized one of the names, Mab. Janis tilted her head slightly. Mallory? That was Mab's real name?

Janis hadn't actually considered that Mab wasn't the girls real name, but Janis had so far enjoyed her time with the young woman. She read the description after the name. It sounded like a Silver special. Feeding, Housing, providing warmth and hope? All of those sounded like the small house she'd grown up in. Janis had often found herself coming in from playing outside to a stranger in their small house, or for her father to give his days earnings to a down on their luck wizard or muggle. What was it mama always said, "If we have enough, we might as well share what else is left in the pot."

Janis suddenly felt an ache for her parents in her chest. It was a tight feeling. One that felt a bit like something was pulling at her. She picked up her pen and added her name

Janis Silver, 1st Year underneath Mab's charity.

She reached up to wipe her nose on her sleeve only to feel wetness on her cheeks. She wiped them quickly with her hand and walked away from the charity poster.

41 Janis Rosemary Silver Sounds like home 1493 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

June 27, 2020 1:53 PM

Bless you. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

CW: implied homophobia

Jezebel didn't have asthma and she didn't think she knew anyone else who did. But it wasn't gay people and it wasn't family stuff and it wasn't just buildings or anything like that. She had eyed that one and still wasn't sure whether she'd maybe go ahead and sign up, but she was pretty sure she wouldn't be welcome there as a muggle born. Plus, this one was easy. It mattered. It would help people. And it was one that Bridget said she was maybe interested in, so they could do it together. And Jezebel was definitely a normal level of excited about that.

She shifted from foot to foot as she looked at the charity sign up board and eventually just took a breath, dug in her bag, and put her name on the asthma one. It was going to be fine. Everything was fine. And the gay people club could go on without her because she wasn't one of them. And the ones for magic people could go on without her because she was barely one. And families could go on without her because she barely had one. And everything would be fine.

Jezebel Reed-Fischer, Crotalus, year 3

And everything would be fine.

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer Bless you. 1454 0 5

Caitlin Pierce

July 04, 2020 3:03 PM

Signing up by Caitlin Pierce

CW-Homophobia, racism, anti-werewolf sentiments

Caitlin's general opinion on charities was that it looked good to support them. However, there were some that she wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole as she generally disagreed with them. Some of which others were signed up to do, including charities supporting gay people and werewolves and a muggle cultural center. The first two involved people who didn't deserve help while she didn't even know that last one helped anyone and it just amounted to Muggles forcing their culture on wizards and failing to adapt to circumstances they should have been grateful for. Like their culture was better Honestly, people like Caitlin were always accused of being prejudiced by thinking that about the magical world but Muggleborns obviously thought the same way. It was downright hypocritical.

Because of this, she didn't think the fair was going to go any better than the ball even though rest of the charities were fairly reasonable. One couldn't argue with supporting victims of child abuse or violent crime, despite that they were unpleasant topics. However, some of these charities were started by undesirable people that she did not want to align herself, such as Lyssa Fitzgerald. That girl was awful! She was one of the people who had really ruined the ball for the Crotalus, but that was hardly surprising. While Sylvia thought "those people" should not act above their station-true-Caitlin thought they should not act like wild animals either and needed to do things like dress appropriately.

And, of course, Caitlin still had to be involved in this whole thing. To look like she actually cared about things. Which she did, honestly. She did care about people who genuninely deserved it such as her family and friends. And, when it came to charities, people who were actually victims.

Come to think of it, it was interesting that Theo Spurn's pro-werewolf (ugh) charity directly contradicted Heinrich's given how werewolves contributed to violent crime.

Anyway, Sylvia had decided to lead a charity and it was a fairly important cause, albeit not the exact one Caitlin would have picked. She would have preferred something that promoted traditional femininity, something that said it was okay to be girl and act like one. Which, as far as she was concerned, was fighting sexism as some people clearly thought that it was preferable to reject it, suggesting that they thought masculine ways were better ones. Which was sexist.

However, she thought it might be better to just unite with her best friend and support her. Loyalty was an important quality in a friendship and besides, Caitlin did not want pretty historical buildings torn down in favor of ugly modern ones. Not to mention the preservation of magical history being important. Besides, if Zara Jackson could have her stupid muggle cultural thing, then the Gardenia Girls should be able to have a charity that was as contradictory as Heinrich's was to Theo's.

And Caitlin would consider other charities as well. Reasonable ones started by decent people. For now though, she placed her name on the list.

Caitlin Pierce, sixth year, Crotalus

11 Caitlin Pierce Signing up 1415 0 5

Theo Spurn

July 07, 2020 4:26 AM

...go werewolves? by Theo Spurn

It had been… a period of time since Theo had put his sign up sheet up. Probably ages. He had done it, been excited, promptly forgotten about it, and now was back. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one who had forgotten about it cos there were several of his friends' names that were still missing. That was okay. Theo had no doubt that they would all support him because that’s what friends did. Just sometimes getting around to writing things down was hard.

He had meant to check whether he was allowed to do other booths so he could sign his name for other people’s too, and he had got as far as doing that (he couldn’t now remember who he’d asked but he was sure they’d said doing up to three was fine and they’d seemed like they knew what they were talking about). So, that meant he should choose two more because all of these were good things, and he wasn’t sure whether it mattered who had the most signatures (whether they… won?) but it would be nice to help others. He still hadn’t checked what ‘staff sponsor’ meant or what he’d actually agreed to do here, but that was a detail for later.

Before he could choose some other charities to support though, he saw a familiar dark head coming into the hall.

“Hey Josie!” he yelled from the sign up sheets, “Hey Josie, come sign my list!”

(OOC have tried to make it vague in case other people want to say they signed up promptly but just didn’t get around to posting about it yet. You’re all welcome to come! YAY WEREWOLVES).

13 Theo Spurn ...go werewolves? 1476 0 5

Josephine Clyde

July 07, 2020 5:11 AM

Going, going, gone by Josephine Clyde

Food. She needed food. Maybe a cookie too, but if Josie didn’t eat something right now then she was going to start gnawing on her arm. The Cascade Hall had literally never felt further than in this moment. She’d almost made it when she heard Theo’s never-sad voice call her name. No, so close. She eyed the welcoming doors of the hall and turned to look at her friend. He seemed to be standing in front of that sign up sheet on the bulletin board. The one for the Charity Fair.

“Theo, hi, I’m actually going to get a snack. Oh, and I already signed up for something, sorry. I’ll come to your stand at the fair though.”

Her body moved towards the food before her brain told her that she’d been a bit rude. That wasn’t nice. Theo is a friend and rejection is never nice, but that was extra unkind. She turned back around to apologize when she caught a few of the words on the sign up sheet. Actually, Josie ignored the hungry protest happening in her stomach to take a closer look at Theo’s paper. Ly-CAN? Werewolf stuff? There were werewolves in the— She cut herself off. There were dragons and unicorns, werewolves weren’t that much of a stretch if she compared them.

“Sorry, I’m kind of impatient when I’m hungry. Your booth sounds cool! I don’t know anything about werewolves though, so I don’t think I’d be really helpful. You should probably find someone who knows more about magic and stuff.”

Satisfied with her answer Josie nodded, smiled and listened to the grumbling in her tummy as she continued her journey to the great and powerful Cascade Hall.

44 Josephine Clyde Going, going, gone 1477 0 5

Theo Spurn

July 07, 2020 6:32 AM

Going with! by Theo Spurn

Josie was there! Then not there. Then back. Then off she went again. Sort of like a yo-yo, only back and forth instead of up and down, and Josie shaped. Jo-Yo!

“That’s okay,” Theo said to basically everything she had said. There had been a lot of it, but it had all been okay. “You can still sign mine. Signing more than one is allowed. I’m gonna sign some others too,” he might have said ‘look, see!’ and added his name to the nearest list to show her but he had followed when she’d stepped away from the board.

“We can snack first,” he agreed, following her to the Aladren table.

“It’s a list,” he corrected, when she said ‘booth.’ But that wasn’t the important part. “I don’t think you need to know about werewolves to sign it you just… have to want to sign it,” he shrugged. “I don’t think there’s gonna be a quiz,” maybe there would be a quiz! That would be funny. But there probably wasn’t. It seemed like that wouldn’t go with whatever this was. “And you know enough,” he assured her, “Remember, we had that class last year about not being a jerk? Back when Professor Marsh’s face was softer? He taught us the not-being-a-jerk class and werewolves were in,” he pointed out. Professor Marsh had actually declared the class to be about classification but given the very pointed way he had stuck ‘veelas’ up in the same category as humans and made them Really Look At It, Theo had got the subtext. That probably meant it had actually been… text, as he normally wasn’t very good at subtext.

“Ooh, pudding cups!” he grinned as his preferred snack appeared in front of him.

13 Theo Spurn Going with! 1476 0 5

Anya Delachene

July 07, 2020 6:16 PM

I'm here for you, Theo! by Anya Delachene

Anya hadn't hesitated to sign up for Dorian's group, but she was holding off on her next two because she wanted to see all her options before she made her final choices. Also, she wasn't sure she really wanted to max out the three she was allowed to join, because she did have other things she liked to do, and she wanted to give whatever she joined enough focus that she wasn't missing meetings (here's looking at you, Jasmine) because she was overextended and doing too much.

So a day after the deadline that all booths had to be identified, she looked over the list and considered what was up there. There weren't any causes she was particularly passionate about other than that Ellie and her uncles should be treated right, but a lot of them had merit.

In the end, though, her decision for what her second and final charity would be had less to do with what was being promoted as who was doing the promoting. Theo was one of her very best friends, and she wasn't going to make him do this without her support.

Anya Delachene, 3rd Year

At this point, she thought that would be all the charities she needed to formally join. The rest could just count on her patronage with some of Mom and Dad's money come fair time.

1 Anya Delachene I'm here for you, Theo! 1453 0 5

Josephine Clyde

July 08, 2020 8:05 PM

I think I should just go away by Josephine Clyde

A list? She hadn’t been surprised when Theo had followed her into hall, but she hadn’t expected him to continue talking about the werewolf thing. So, it wasn’t going to be at the charity fair? No booth? But then that didn’t make sense. Maybe they were still in the planning stages? She remembered how not so full of names the paper had been and realized maybe there weren’t a lot of sign ups. The LGBTQIA+ meeting was just something she’d shown up to, no writing her name on a little paper. There might be other people like her then, ones that just showed up to the meeting unannounced and unexpected. Yeah, Theo was popular and well-liked for sure. He must have other people.

“I remember the class, but honest I don’t know a thing about werewolves. I didn’t even know there were any until right now!”

Half of an egg salad sandwich appeared on the plate in front of her and she attacked it. Wonderful, amazing, spectacular and satisfying she sighed happily about halfway through it. A plate of brownies showed up next. Two kinds: one dotted with colorful M&M’s and the other with a swirly black and white top. Hmmmm. Cheesecake brownies or extra chocolaty goodness? Both. Josie moved both beautiful brownies to her plate and tore the corner off of the cheesecake one. It was just what she needed.

Feeling decidedly more human Josie looked back at Theo and his pudding cup. It didn’t seem like anything had been firmly decided yet with his charity fair thing. Which made sense too since it was Theo. Maybe it would be okay if she joined? For now, it was just her name on a list. She didn’t anything, but that was how the LGBTQIA+ meeting had gone and this year was about trying lots of new things.

She toyed with an M&M, “Theo, are you sure you want me to help? I mean, I’m not going to be really useful for magic stuff.”

44 Josephine Clyde I think I should just go away 1477 0 5

Theo Spurn

July 09, 2020 11:34 PM

I don't think so by Theo Spurn

“Werewolves are people,” Theo said simply as he sat next to Josie, “Three days out of the month, they get sick and they turn into something else, but the rest of the time they’re just people. And other people use those three days as an excuse to be really mean to them and it’s not okay.”

Josie seemed worried that she wouldn’t be much help because of not knowing about magical stuff. Theo shrugged this off. For starters, he didn’t know what they were doing yet, but more importantly, Josie was not useless, she was a friend.

“You’re good at lots of things,” he promised her. “You always help me out in class,” he pointed out. Josie had mad skills like ‘listening to most instructions’ and ‘remembering what they were’ which were bound to come in handy in a lot of situations. “Plus it’s doing things together!” Probably. At the moment that thing was just making a list, but it mattered to Theo that all his friends’ names were on it. “You’re good at that,” he added with a smile. Josie was always fun to hang out with.

“Ly-CAN are nice. They can probably teach you more about werewolves if you want to know. They have lots of leaflets but also fun days. They’re nice people,” he smiled enthusiastically.

13 Theo Spurn I don't think so 1476 0 5

Philippe Delachene

July 10, 2020 5:34 PM

This one does not have Delachene representation by Philippe Delachene

The charity fair sounded like a great idea. There were tons of good charities out there, and it was good to get some of them spotlighted. The problem was picking just one or two to support. Because of Uncle Daniel and his fathers, the LGBTQ+ one was pretty obvious. So obvious, in fact, that both Jasmine and Anya had already decided they'd be a part of that, and the group seemed to have plenty of support already, so he decided he'd let his sisters handle representing the Delachene name there. Jasmine was also helping out fighting child abuse and promoting awareness of Allergies and Asthma. Anya had taken on werewolves. Philippe saw no need to double up on those efforts either.

That left the Boston ones, but he was from the other side of the country as Boston and it just seemed weird. There was something about buildings which didn't seem particularly, well, pressing compared to some of the others. The tutors one kind of seemed to imply the coordinator wanted to run it in Spanish, maybe? He knew French, not Spanish. So . . . eh. The Bringing Back the Light thing sounded pretty good but maybe kind of intense. He wasn't sure how much he really wanted to know about how badly the dark arts affected people.

So then there was this one.

It wasn't frivolous. It wasn't scary. It wasn't in a language he didn't know. It wasn't already populated by Delachenes.

And not harassing people was important. Nobody wanted to be harassed.

So he added his name.

Philippe Delachene, 1st Year

1 Philippe Delachene This one does not have Delachene representation 1489 0 5

Josephine Clyde

July 24, 2020 12:35 AM

I guess I CAN too then... by Josephine Clyde

Josie bit back a smile at Theo’s reassurances. He probably wasn’t even trying to reassure her, but it made her feel much better. If she thought of werewolves as people who were sick for a few days then maybe she could help. But Theo’s last remark made her pause. Was Ly-CAN real? She’d just assumed that it was something Theo made up. His poster just said “werewolf stuff” on it. Or maybe other people had joined? Possibly, she couldn’t remember if there had been any new names attached to today’s paper. At Theo's praise the brownie went down with a bit of a fight…a lot of a fight.

A glass of milk appeared in front of her and she drank it greedily. It was the perfect thing to wash down her brownie, not that it had gotten stuck in her throat or anything. Nope, not at all. She swallowed the milk and slapped her chest a few times. Choking was not on her list of things to do at Sonora. Once the brownie fiasco had passed Josie looked back at Theo with a somewhat sheepish grin.

“I’ll sign up for your werewolf stuff thing. So is Ly-CAN a real organization? Has anyone else signed up?”

She wondered if anyone she knew might have also joined. These events were great places to meet new people and experience new things. She just needed to look at it like that. New experiences and new friends. If she did that then it would make swallowing things easier. Josie glanced at the plate of brownies in front of her. Literally.

44 Josephine Clyde I guess I CAN too then... 1477 0 5