Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Milwaukee Holiday Toy Drive

I am helping the local guys with their holiday charity mission. Below is the press release for the event-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- MILWAUKEE "REAL LIFE SUPERHERO" LEADS TOY DRIVE


Milwaukee, WI-December, 1, 2010- You’ve probably read an article about him in a paper or heard people talk about him. Maybe you’ve even seen him on the streets of Milwaukee. Now you can not only meet Milwaukee’s Real Life Superhero, The Watchman, but you can help him with a heroic mission- donating toys and art supplies to charity.

Saturday, December 11, The Watchman will be in person in front of the Fuel Café (818 E. Center Street) from 10AM-4PM collecting donations of cash, art supplies, and (new) toys. Online money and in person cash donations will be used to buy additional toys and art supplies and everything will be delivered in person to two charities the following week.

Those charities are the Gingerbread House, located in West Bend, which provides toys to low income families who can’t afford to buy gifts for their children and Meta House, a rehab center for women and their children, located in Riverwest. Meta House has also cited a need for art supplies for their various art programs.

This is the third year The Watchman and his Great Lakes Alliance teammates in Minnesota are participating in a holiday charity mission. Fundraising will be open online on the team’s site, www.wix.com/glhg10/gla2010, until December 10. The online funds will be divided between Milwaukee and the Minnesota heroes, who will be donating to People Serving People, a shelter in Minneapolis.

This year Watchman has the additional support of Milwaukee author Tea Krulos (who is writing a book on real life superheroes) and fellow Milwaukee real life superhero Blackbird (who is helping with the mission, but won’t be at the drive, due to his mysterious nature) and other volunteers on hand to help out. In a comic book reversal, The Watchman is shining a batsignal to the public, hoping people will stop by and donate gifts for these great charities and share the holiday spirit.

At a glance:
WHAT: The Watchman’s charity toy drive
WHEN: Saturday, December 11, 10AM-4PM
WHERE: Fuel Café, 818 E. Center Street
The Watchman is collecting toys, art supplies, and money for two charities- the Gingerbread House in West Bend and the Meta House in Riverwest. Donations can also be made online until December 10 at the Great Lakes Alliance’s website: www.wix.com/glhg10/gla2010

Contact: Tea Krulos
teakrulos@gmail.com

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2 comments:

  1. Tea Krulos,

    One calls double standard. When you previously met with Villains, Master Legend dropped out of his TREE, with accusations of Villain Coddling. Now, you actively support the heroes you seek to document. Impartial Observer will not be an attribute you will be able to maintain going forward. Perhaps this was never to be the case, and then one allows that you have an established bias.

    One supports the idea of helping, but points out that you sacrifice your journalistic integrity by publicly joining their efforts, in any role other than as observer.

    One may be incorrect, and defers to your greater knowledge, but warns that the enticing slide to tights is a slippery path.

    -Lord Malignance

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  2. Lord Malignance,

    I know what you're saying here, and you bring up some good points about objectivity, the slippery slope all journalists are prone to slide down and their eventual trial by fire.

    But in this case, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I could spin this in a journalistic way- that by actively participating in an activity my subject often does (charity work) I am experiencing their "subculture" firsthand, much as I have with joining them on other common activities such as crime patrols and hand outs.

    I could spin it from a business angle- that any public event which features the RLSH and myself is good promotion.

    Honestly, though, I'm glad to help the local guys out- they have been supportive of me and allowed me to document them working in my neighborhood. The local charity this will benefit is also a good one- I had a long discussion with a representative from Meta House about what they do, and she gave me a personal tour of the facilities. So I decided to help out with a press release/ some communication facilitating.

    I'll compare this to roller derby. I wrote a column for three seasons on my local roller derby league, the Brew City Bruisers. Over the course of the seasons, I became friends with some of the skaters, partied with them, challenged them to drinking contests, probably "felt romantic" about some of them, didn't really like some of them, etc.

    Despite this, or more importantly, because of this, when I sat down to write about them for the column, I was very conscious to put my prejudices aside- to write about what was happening inside the ring and give people the proper amount of ink whether they were a friend or not, without bias. I never gushed about the skaters I liked or harped on ones I didn't, I looked at skating skill, points, statistics, and penalties.

    In short, they couldn't read my, couldn't read my, p-p-p-Poker Face.

    -Tea

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