Some days, the world is just good

Years ago, I commented that I thought I had more true friends than I deserved and Jacob Flores, Jr. (I think it was maybe at his birthday party) said he thought people got exactly the friends they deserved. I sincerely hope he is correct because if so, I am much more often than I have previously believed.

We have a Kickstarter campaign going on. If you don't know what that is, in brief, you put up a project and if people want to see it happen, they can pledge say, "If you make this, I'll pay $15 to get a license for the beta version of the game."

So .... short version of long story - we received $100,000 to cover the cost of building and testing a pilot version of an adventure game that teaches kids math. HALF of the companies that got those grants will EACH get a $450,000 grant to fully develop their product. A big part of that decision is who commercially viable your project is. SO ..... we put it up on Kickstarter and tried to get $20,000 - on the average, getting 400 people to give us $50 - some will give more or less but the point is to demonstrate this is something people would support and fund, and that we can get some attention to it. In fact, getting $25 from 800 people would actually help us more.

Looking at the dashboard, I can see who pledged money, where the links came from, who tweeted it, who posted it on Facebook and - wow, just wow.

First of all, I am really, really touched because there are some people from the reservations who pledged money who I know really don't have a lot. So, that person pledging $15 out of their social security check to see that this game gets made to help kids learn math - it sort of renewed my faith in humanity.

Then there are the people who really went out of their way to help and get the word out. My sister, Dr. Joy Harris, emailed everyone she knew, and then she suggested that I contact her daughter, Jessica Bueler, who is president of the Loop Business Association in St. Louis. Jessica got right on it, pledged, posted it on Facebook and got her friends to do the same. Jessica's younger sister, Samantha, is still in college and doesn't have the business connections but she is a Facebook fiend, so she has posted and shared the link to our Kickstarter site on Facebook many times. My friend and long-time business partner, Dr. Erich Longie has also been active on Facebook and promoting our project.

Then there are the people I don't even know who went out of their way  - a person I only know as @customNinja on twitter pledged over $500.

I don't know what I did to deserve so much help from so many people - but THANK YOU.
If you'd like to see what Spirit Lake: The Game is and would like to shoot wolves, escape from bears and learn math without the homework, please click here and watch our video.