Welcome, to #CharityBowlAfterDark

In which the Cal community tries to #donate$30,000? $35000? *$40,000?* for refugee resettlement in America

This week, the Cal community – mostly the way-too-online denizens of Twitter and the Shutdown Fullcast (the world’s only* college football podcast) listening corners of that community – have been hard at work raising funds on behalf of New American Pathways, a Georgia based charity that works to resettle refugees in the larger Atlanta area.

It is vital, essential, and noble work that New American Pathways does, helping people who have not come to seek a home by choice, to find one here in the United States.

And what a week it has been -- after five days, we ended the “main” phase of EDSBS Charity Bowl 2021 with a stunning, ferocious donation campaign that caught even the event organizers off-guard.

How unprecedented, you ask?

Well, at last count, we can confirm nearly $28,000 worth of donations on behalf of the Blue and Gold, a number which:

·         Outpaces or keeps up with nearly every school in the competition, except Michigan – because Michigan always wins. (No, but seriously - name your college football powerhouse. We either matched or outraised them by the close of Friday, despite the much, much smaller nature of our fanbase.)

·         Accounted for nearly half of the Pac-12’s donations in this year’s competition.

·         Is six times greater than last year’s full week total of $4618.69, which was already good for 25th among all fanbases, and 3rd among Pac-12 schools.

·         Included Thursday and Friday totals of approximately $8,700 and $11,000(!).

·         Featured four different donations of $2500 or more.

·         Is part of nearly $700,000 dollars raised for the cause this year.

(And here, it is probably appropriate to give my deepest, sincerest apologies to the timelines we ruined during this -- it was the result of what happens when a small, petty, far too online community decides that it will not be stopped.)

Final update as of 5:38 PT Friday, from New American Pathways:

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You will notice that this post is currently being published on a Saturday, rather than as a post-weekend update. That is because the organizers of EDSBS Charity Bowl have extended the contest until a random time on Sunday night, with the caveat that the leaderboard will no longer be updated.

Put another way, we are now firmly entering a chaotic, no-holds barred, weekend of complete donating unpredictability, in which we are being chased down by other college football teams, surely motivated by the fact that little old Cal, the hippie-anarcho-communists are here at all.

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If we cannot raise even another penny this weekend, and if we are overtaken in a fog of giving by the other, larger fanbases, then there is still no other way to see what the Cal community accomplished together this week, both in its genuine enthusiasm for the cause, and the actual amount raised, except as a complete success. Peoples’ lives are going to get substantially better because we were willing to give this week.

But — what if we could raise more?

What if we all told someone else about what’s happened here already? What if we could finish out this week, with a performance that actually fends off the Virginias, and the Georgias? The Ohio and Penn States, the Notre Dames? What if we get to reach second in the country, in a karmic do-over for 2007?

Shit, what if we won(*non-Michigan division) this time?

Because, are we not at home in the uncertain and the insanity? Have we not made the chaos our comforter this last decade, through games that have included Sunday lightning delays, and Cheez-its? Isn’t — what’s that saying — when the sun goes down, the Pac-12 gets going?

Welcome to #CharityBowlAfterDark for Cal, where literally every dollar, share, retweet, like, or view counts; the first time this millennium that we can say we want Bama, and mean it.

This weekend, donate whatever you can here, and help us do even more good. Go Bears.