I MADE A POST ON A SERIOUS TOPIC BUT OF COURSE I WILL NOT BE SERIOUS IN DOING SO

Hello, dear and esteemed readers of Every Day Should Be Saturday! I’d like to take a moment today to talk about charity. Now, this is not an unfamiliar concept to readers of this site. You’ve loaded up the money cannon in shocking numbers in the past.

But let’s start with an allegory, a fable, a parable.

In 2012, there were two teams. (There were more than that, but not in this parable).

There was the mighty, strong, well-funded, beautiful and invincible team from Alabama.

They had all of the resources and all of the advantages in life, and they succeeded wildly.

Then, there was a scrappy upstart. A private, church-based college in a small town in a northern state, somewhere you’d never expect to compete in major college football.

They both cruised through their football seasons; the first team relying on their tremendous resources and advantages to, predictably, beat every team they played (except for the one led by Johnny Manziel for some reason); the second team relying on pluck, grit, sticktoitiveness and Midwestern gumption to improbably beat everyone on its schedule.

When they met, at the end of the season, (with the plucky upstart dealing with personal tragedy, no less), did the School with all of the advantages show charity?

They did not.

But today, you can.

[serious voice]

Today is Give For Good Louisville, a one-day, city-wide fundraising effort among nonprofits all over Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana. I, aside from being an absurdist college football fanfiction writer and occasionally an anthropomorphic dog, work with one of those charities, Personal Counseling Services, which provides mental health services to clients in Southern Indiana.

A brief pitch that someone smarter than I wrote:

Since 1959, PCS has provided more than 530,000 hours of counseling and psychiatric services by offering a caring refuge from the stress or trauma of daily living. We continue to care for and assist hurting people to function more effectively and teach life skills to enrich lives. PCS promotes wellness of mind, body and spirit which leads to better performance in life, work and school. Sixty-four percent (64%) of our clients are children and youth and 57 percent (57%) are at or below the federal poverty guideline.

Our organization provides a range of services, including music therapy - which has changed the lives of children affected by abuse, neurodevelopmental disabilities and other challenges - addiction therapy, marriage counseling and more.

It is a small organization and donations of any amount make a real impact. Here is a donation link.

[slightly less serious tone, but still with good intent]

Now, being that this is Every Day Should Be Saturday, if you choose to Donate, may I suggest some strategies:

• Donate $48 to remind me that in 2016 and 2017, the Cincinnati Bearcats went 4-8.
• Donate $20.48 to remind me that, despite being 2-0 in the current season, the Cincinnati Bearcats could well go 4-8 this year.
• Donate the score of your favorite team’s most recent win over the Cincinnati Bearcats, which stands a good chance of being $36.14, if you’re a Michigan fan, which some of you are.

Also, some incentives!

• If you do this well, I will have to explain, at the next board meeting - WHICH IS TOMORROW - who “Action Cookbook” is, what “Every Day Should Be Saturday” is, and I will be doing so to a group of people who are, by and large, serious people who are at least twenty years older than me and extremely Not Online. I had to do this last year after I Twitter-fundraised, and I assure you - though you will not be there, it will be very, very funny, and deeply awkward for me.
• In keeping with EDSBS tradition, if you tell me the name of your school in your donation, I will recognize the top-earning school with a post talking about how much I love them. And remember, I was born and raised in Ohio, so there’s a good chance you’ll make this painful for me. Also, I’ll put pictures of the dog in it. You all seem to like that.
• THE FINAL INCENTIVE - tying back to my little parable above: I am in possession of one (1), brand-new, never-worn, tags-still-on-it, extremely luxurious snapback hat commemorating Notre Dame’s glorious victory over Alabama in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game, in a timeline in which the Tide was charitable and gave.

I will mail this to the top individual donor. Maybe you want it because you’re a Notre Dame fan and it should’ve been yours all along. Maybe you want it because you’re the opposite of that. Anyways, it can be yours.

Please donate, if you can.