LeakyCon is a charity supporting conference: We regularly benefit The Harry Potter Alliance and Book Aid International, two organizations close to our heart who have done phenomenal work in literacy and community action. We have also benefited This Star Won’t Go Out, an organization that helps families of terminally ill children and was inspired by Esther Earl, after whom our charity ball was named.
LeakyCon has raised more than $150,000 for charitable causes in its short history. We aim to continue to use our conference to support these and more charities as our commitment to good works grows and deepens. You can read more about each organization on their Web site.
CHARITY ROW
We are also looking to expand Charity Row, a special section of the LeakyCon vending space dedicated to giving Charities the opportunity to put their causes in front of LeakyCon’s guests. If you know of any worth causes in the Portland or London areas: please drop us a line at [email protected] if there are any you’d like to be considered.
The Harry Potter Alliance
The Harry Potter Alliance has worked for the past four years to motivate and inspire youth around the world to get involved in various social issues that face the world today. From the struggle for universal equal rights to alerting the world to the dangers of global warming, poverty, and genocide, the Harry Potter Alliance has been a champion of grassroots, community activism in response to these vast issues. Their successes include raising funds for the protection of thousands of women and children in Darfur and Burma and collecting and donating thousands of books for a youth village in Rwanda. In early 2010, efforts by the Harry Potter Alliance and a network of related fandom communities raised more than $123,000 for the Haitian people through Partners in Health. This past July, the HP Alliance was awarded $250,000 through the Chase Community Giving Challenge on Facebook. The HPA entered the four-week contest, which looked for the most promising local charities from across the globe, and won the challenge with 38,000 votes. Through the winnings, the HPA will be able to improve literacy, LGBT rights, and build an online coalition of fandoms, YouTubes, and organizations.
More about The Harry Potter Alliance can be found on their official website.
Book Aid International
Book Aid International increases access to books and supports literacy, education and development in some of the poorest communities in the World. Each year the charity provides more than 500,000 new, carefully-chosen books to libraries in villages and cities, schools and universities, reading rooms and refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa. These books are read time and time again by adults and children — for education, for vocation and for pleasure. The charity also provides training to librarians and teachers as well as small grants to enable libraries to purchase books in the local language and refurbish reading rooms to make them more attractive and functional. In sub-Saharan Africa today at least 153 million people cannot read or write and Book Aid International is a long-standing global charity dedicated to helping change lives through books. Leaky has supported many of the charity’s worthwhile endeavors for several years, and we are proud to continue this tradition.
More information can be found on the Book Aid International website.