2024 EDSBS Charity Bowl is Live

The annual week-long fundraiser for New American Pathways is live!

Donate here: https://fundraise.givesmart.com/e/ZfQ61w?vid=14yyna

Learn more about why this college football internet community supports NewAmPaths here: https://channel-6.ghost.io/r/06be3182?m=69860142-410f-4f4c-818d-7d81c1234a2b

Michigan wins this going away every year and this year we can say that it's "Just-Like-Foot-Ball" (clap clap clap clap clap). (And Debate. And Cheer). 

Huge wall of text from the PDF that was emailed out with rules, info, etc.

INTRO Good day to you, classically beautiful and boundlessly generous readers of the Shutdown Fullcast, Vacation Bible School, Split Zone Duo, and other fine programs of the EDSBS Extended Universe. (Think it’s weird that this all has to be named after Spencer? First of all, he started it. Second of all, it makes him wildly uncomfortable, so that’s a win for the rest of us.) 

The 2024 Charity Bowl (styled as #CharitibundiBowl) is upon us. Here’s everything you need to know: The Bowl is an annual fundraising contest staged by the EDSBS Extended Universe in aid of New American Pathways (@newampaths), a full-service refugee resettlement nonprofit based in Atlanta. We’ve been putting on this celebration for well over a decade at this point, a number we were very happy to hit because in true EDSBS fashion, nobody can quite remember what year we did the first one. 

Why New AP? Many jobs and several mergers ago, a young @edsbs worked at one of their predecessor orgs. You can read more about that time, and what still moves us to work with these communities today, over at Channel 6. THE RULES The 2024 EDSBS Charity Bowl will kick off (football term) on Monday morning, April 15, via announcement on the New American Pathways Twitter feed. The game officially concludes on Friday evening, April 19, though we have been known to extend the contest into the weekend in pursuit of stretch goals. The New AP Twitter feed will have the most up-do-date information regarding official stop/start times, and will also serve as your first point of contact for any issues during bowl week. Spencer and Holly will be camped there all week to field questions and celebrate especially creative donations. The splash page (linked down below in the FAQ, for reasons) is your home for everything else: A portal to submit your actual donations, a running (unofficial!) tally of all the money we’ve raised so far, and links where you can learn more about New AP and their work. 

CHARITIBUNDI BOWL HOW TO PL AY Once the launch has been announced, hit the splash page and navigate to the dropdown menu. You will see a long list of schools with football teams. Select the team you want to compete under, and type in your donation amount. By tradition, donations are typically made in the form of a football score or statistic that has sentimental value to the donor. $70.33, for example, in memory of West Virginia’s infamous Orange Bowl romp over Clemson, or $26.28, to honor Barry Sanders’ world-beating single-season rushing record. At the end of the week, the school with the highest donation total will be declared the winner. You’ll also have the option to make this one-time gift a quarterly or monthly recurring donation, which will earn a year’s worth of multiplier points for our scoring purposes. Example: You’re donating $100 on behalf of Vanderbilt (it’s imaginary!). If you make that donation a $100 quarterly pledge instead, Vanderbilt will be awarded a full year’s worth of donations to their team score in advance, in this case $400. A $100 monthly pledge will add $1,200 to the team score. (Note that recurring gifts, as well as corporate matching gifts, are not going to show up on the splash page running total, since we have to enter them manually.) Now comes the good part: 

TIME TO BRAG ABOUT YOUR GENEROSITY ONLINE. Post your donation receipt (don’t forget to redact any identifying info)! Tag Spencer. Tag Holly. Tag New AP. Tag your school and your school’s famous alumni. Cheerfully bullying your friends and rivals into joining the game themselves is how we keep this operation growing. Where is the link to donate? Right here at the splash page. It’s buried down here for a reason: 

F YOU WANT YOUR DONATION TO COUNT TOWARDS THE 2024 CHARITY BOWL, DO NOT DONATE EARLY. New AP gratefully accepts donations year-round, but if you click before we launch this year’s tally, your donation will be recorded in last year’s database, and will not be counted towards this year’s score. Can we donate more than once? You’re welcome to do so! 

ONCE IT’S TIME. How do I donate via mobile? Text charitybowl24 to 91999, AFTER THE BOWL LAUNCHES ON MONDAY MORNING. I did it anyway. Can you go get it and add it to this year’s board? No. We’re very busy! Thank you for your money. What on God’s green internet is the #CharitibundiBowl? The official contest hashtag. We’ve been doing this a while, and the notion of “charity” has evolved in that time. So a few years back, we co-opted this fabulous, short-lived Boca Raton Bowl name for our own purposes. 

New Awhatican What Now? Here is New American Pathways. They support refugee families resettled in America from the day they touch down at the airport until the day they take their citizenship exams. This can encompass a huge range of needs, from finding safe housing, getting children enrolled in school and adults in job training, to language classes, legal aid, and after-school programs. Checkout their social platforms throughout the week to learn more about New AP and how their work shapes communities in and around Atlanta: www.facebook.com/NewAmericanPathways www.instagram.com/newamericanpathways What’s a refugee? A refugee has been forced to flee his or her country because of war, violence, or a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Refugee status in the United States means that a refugee has applied for resettlement abroad and has been granted the opportunity to resettle here. Applicants undergo a lengthy and rigorous 13-step process conducted by the U.S Department of State and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Can I run my own Charity Bowl contest just for my school? Absolutely. Cal rocketed into the top ten last year thanks entirely to a small group of alumni trying to one-up each other. As long as your donations are made via the GiveSmart portal, they’ll be counted. 

What about corporate matching? OH DO WE LOVE YOU. Yes, we accept your boss’s money. (cont.) Added incentive: All matching donations that can be verified by your employer before the end of the Bowl will be added to the leaderboard. To have your matching gift verified and scored, contact Sara Escorza {[email protected]} I’m trying to donate another way. We’ll do whatever we can to help you. If you’re making a donation via a family foundation/donor advised fund/trust account, donating over $1000 and trying to avoid credit card processing fees, donating from overseas, donating via wire transfer, want to make a gift of stock or other appreciated securities, or have any other questions, please contact Carina Buchwald {[email protected]} and Nancy Gaddy at {[email protected]} in advance and they’ll get you set up. Where do refugees come from? All over. In 2023, New AP welcomed refugees from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Burma, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. How much money did we raise last year? Our initial tallycombined with a list of matching corporate donations that took several additional days to count landed us at $933,287. Wow, what else has this normal college football collective done? Several years ago, thanks to your rampaging generosity, we were able to establish the EDSBS Empowerment Fund. This fund covers a range of smaller needs that arise for refugees and their families outside the major programs offered by New AP. A typical use might involve paying for driving lessons so that parents can commute to their new jobs, and covering childcare during those lessons. Who won last year’s Bowl? For a mind-bending streak of many years now, that school has been Michigan, and second place has not been close. Is this the year that narrative is challenged? We’ll all find out together! Aren’t you tired of making Spencer get Michigan-themed tattoos? Don’t answer that! Who were last year’s runners-up? Here’s last year’s final leaderboard. I can’t afford to make a splashy donation. Should I even bother? Look, if there’s anybody who understands this, it’s a bunch of bloggers. But! We say this every year, and it keeps on being true: The VAST majority of donations are in the $20 range. $10 is welcome. $5 is welcome. It all helps. So how does Michigan keep winning? The schools at the top of the leaderboard all tend to have one or two big-money donors bumping them up the ranks, but even at Michigan, the $20 donors outstrip everybody else. They keep winning because they have HORDES of donors. Wanna topple them this year? Bring your friends. 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS CAME TO PLAY SCHOOLS The following pre-existing (as of 2023 bowl week) institutions are recognized as canon by EDSBS leadership and have permanent places in the dropdown list: Make Spencer Eat Cheese University PAY THEM KIDS THEIR MONEY University of Night Ham Protect Trans Kids University Vacation Bible School SZD U Gold Trans Ams Jetski Police Academy Naropa University Soviet Cat University SPE AKING OF WHICH Please ESPECIALLY be your sweet selves when interacting with New AP employees and volunteers, many of whom are former refugees themselves. The Wednesday afternoon data-entry point person who misfiled your Texas Tech donation under Texas State may not know much about the Big 12, but they’re also working in their fourth language, so CHILL. THAT’S IT THAT’S ALL It may take us a while to get there, but we didn’t come this far by being timid: We’re setting this year’s initial goal at $500,000. Dazzle us, won’t you? See you Monday. IT WOULDN’T BE AN EDSBS EVENT WITHOUT SOME WEIRD HICCUPS RECURRING HE ADACHES RECUR Some of you will remember from last year that, on the donation platform New AP uses, we have no way of changing a recurring donation over from last year’s contest to a new campaign. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass for us too. So. What does this mean for you? It means: IF YOU SET UP A 2022 or 2023 RECURRING GIFT AND WANT IT SCORED FOR 2024, YOU HAVE TO CANCEL IT AND MAKE A NEW PLEDGE. This is tedious and we’re sorry about it! Contact Sara Escorza at {[email protected]} to make arrangements. One more annual recurring gifts hiccup: We have run into a ton of problems in the past trying to get recurring gifts to process via PayPal. If you want to make a recurring (monthly or quarterly) gift, it must be done via credit card. If that doesn’t work for you, contact Nancy Gaddy {[email protected]} for assistance in making alternate arrangements