A special holiday update from our Stacks across the country and beyond.
Our Stacks joined forces across the country (and beyond!) to spread the love throughout their communities this Valentine’s Day. They each selected from a list of events, focusing on safety and doing what was best for their local communities. Read on for more about our Stacks.
Stacking Up at Holloman Air Force Base
In conjunction with the All Stacks 2021 event, the Holloman Stack has chosen to send valentines to the El Paso Children's Hospital. Hospitals in the area are not allowing visitation, and military travel restrictions prevent us from traveling there to drop off cards to them in person.
Everyone was very excited to make valentines for the kids at the hospital. We all decided to include our kids as well because a valentine from someone in their age group really means a lot. One of our moms is also a school teacher, so she offered it as an opportunity to her class to create something. The kids made some amazing valentines. All in all, we are sending swag, girl scout cookies, and a giant boatload of valentines!
This was a great event for the families in our stack. Everyone loved working on this project and seeing how many of their friends and family they could get involved.
Stacking Up in Delco, PA
For this year's Valentine's Day Event, six of our Stack members - as well as two honorary Stack members (our kids!) - made valentines for the patients at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA.
Over the course of the first two weeks of February, the eight of us created over 100 handmade cards to ship to the patients at the Medical Center.
This was a wonderful experience for us and the kids who helped out to slow down and do something creative to show our love and appreciation to those who have served our country. We're looking forward to doing this again next year!
Stacking Up in Marysville, CA
The Beale AFB chose to send Valentine's day treats to the Sacramento Children's Home. We were very excited to put together 32 cards and lollipops and support the Sacramento Children's Home in their mission of opening doors to the future by maximizing children and families' potential.
Stacking Up in Rochester, NY
For Valentine's Day, we wanted to help spread the love with Stack Up. With these challenging times, we wanted to find an event all were able to participate in. Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital had an eCard link to show support to the healthcare workers taking care and impacting children's lives from all over. Roc Gaming Network is the home of the Rochester, NY stack. To get maximum attention to our event, we posted on our social media pages which cover around 850 followers.
Through our journey at RGN, we have done our best to interact with and promote local streamers, and in turn, they all have been very receptive and supportive of our mission with Stack Up. These are a couple of streamers that helped share our event with their communities, and of course filling out their own forms to say 'thank you'!
Of course, any Stack Up event wouldn't be possible without the support of friends and family. While it is hard to say how many people we were able to get to sign up through posting/sharing on social media. We can say for sure we had 30 people we know that sent an eCard personally. Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital made filling out an eCard easy, as attested to by a friend in the picture. We thank them for making this event possible.
Stacking Up in Louisville, KY
Louisville Stack made valentines cards for Veterans. February is the month of love, and with all the challenges of 2020 and 2021, what better way to show it than by sending valentines day cards to the veterans who are stuck in the hospital during the holiday?
Teaming up with a local scout unit of ages ranging from 7-43, the Louisville Stack created and delivered over 200 Valentine Days cards to the hospital.
Stacking Up in DC
The DC Stack helped meals on wheels with their deliveries. It was originally slated to happen for Sunday but happened on Monday due to the inclement weather/ice storm that hit the dc metro area. We did this activity during a very difficult time in folks' lives while living in unprecedented times.
After most of the city unthawed, we hit the roads with our allotted delivery meals. We practiced safe deliveries with social distancing. The few folks we did talk to were very appreciative and grateful.
The DC Stack delivered a total of 34 meals. Senior isolation has worsened during the pandemic. We felt this was the best way to spend our weekend by helping others in need. Being able to put a smile on someone's face during these trying times is wonderful.
Stacking Up in Stratford, CT
This was the Stratford, Connecticut, first annual Valentine's "CAN" we help this Valentine's day event. At a stack we collected just over 120 pounds of canned foods. There were several anonymous donors and individuals that stepped up in our local community to give a hand. As a whole, we understand that 1 in 9 people go hungry each night. If we could help at least one person we knew as a collective, we are moving in the right direction.
After collecting all the cans, the team sent me up to drop them off at the local foodbank. During COVID-19, the restrictions are high on receiving egress to the bank, so only one member could go in for the actual donation drop-off. Meeting the donations event manager was a great experience. She asked what we stand for at Stack Up, and we were able to give her an abundance of information. She also asked if we would like to come back to volunteer shortly, and the team is extremely excited to do just that!
This experience for the Connecticut Stack was a success; we got to go into our local community and collect some food for those who may be struggling with hardships and also those individuals and families that may have been greatly affected by COVID-19.
Stacking Up in Los Angeles, CA
A cleanup of Chris Carr Park in Huntington Beach, CA! The OC/LA stack met up at the Chris Carr Park in Huntington Beach, CA, and recognized there was a lot of cleanup to do! Aluminum cans, styrofoam filling, plastic bags, and all sorts of debris were littered across the park. The Stack put their efforts together and did a quick cleanup!
It's wonderful for veterans and veteran supporters to come together and see amazing stuff happen in communities across the globe!
Stacking Up in New Zealand
For Valentines Day 2021, an All Stack Mobilization was called. In New Zealand, to spread the Aroha (love), the Stack (of one) went out to pick up broken glass, not broken Hearts, at a local beach.
On the 10th of February, the Stack Leader - Aston Talbot, headed down to his local beach, Stanley Bay - just across from Auckland’s CDB. As it is such a nice, secluded spot, a lot of people bring their cars down at night to have a few drinks, enjoy the view, and sadly, throw a few bottles down onto the rocks.
Being summertime in New Zealand, it was actually nice that the day was overcast and drizzling as it kept the heat away. On an outgoing tide, over the course of a little over an hour, an 80l Wheelie Bin was filled with all sorts of flotsam and jetsam, along with a 10l bucket almost full of bits of broken glass.
This event was such a great idea, and we are looking forward to seeing the efforts put in by the other Stacks around the world!
Note: The COVID-19 situation is that we are at Alert Level 1 (the lowest) with no community transmission because we wore our masks during the first hard lockdowns to sort it out. If anyone is out and about in areas where there is COVID-19, Please mask up, sanitize your hands and surfaces you touch, and keep a contact trace log. They are small bugbears to deal with daily, but it’s been so great to have almost normal “new normal” for what was a banging Summer of 2020/2021!!!!
Stacking Up in Chattanooga, TN
This past year has been a difficult time when it comes to playing games with friends face to face. While there are digital solutions to playing most games, there is a very human cost to doing everything digitally. In this case, the Chattanooga Stack decided to find a way to play games face to face and remain safe. We decided to select individuals who were getting regularly tested due to their employment at a certain massive shipping conglomerate and want to play Magic the Gathering and do so in a private setting to relax, check-in with one another, and make sure everyone's mental health was being maintained in these stressful times.
The event's preparation started with a deep cleaning of the play area, making sure we had enough hand sanitizer for everyone, and making plans for food for later in the day when we inevitably got hungry. Food was delivered with each person ordering separately and eating at a table separate from each other in shifts.
As for the game itself, we played a variant of Magic the Gathering called Commander. It is a variant where you take one legendary creature card and build an entire deck around it. With the new set out, we saw a return of snow land types and snow permanent types return and decks that ran the same way. When a new set comes out is always the best time to return to Magic the Gathering, and this was no exception. We were able to talk about something new and get some laughs in about the absurdity of how the new game mechanics worked vs. the mundanity of this past year.
Amazing work, everyone!
We thank all of you in our Stacks working within your local communities to make the world a better place.
If you would like to get involved with your local chapter of The Stacks and participate in events like these, click the below Stack Up Happy Valentine's gif for more information. No Stack in your area? No worries! Learn more about working with us to establish a Stack in your area by clicking the same gif.
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