I want to talk about how awesome 2013 has been for the HPA.
2013 has been filled with awesome:
- With our 5th Accio Books! campaign our members have now donated over 120,000 books to communities in need.
- We launched the Apparating Library to enable our members to swap books at events like LeakyCon, the Quidditch World Cup, and the Yule Ball.
- We now have 200 HPA chapters improving their local communities in the name of Harry Potter.
- We have broadly expanded our campaign on corporate transparency regarding child slavery and collected over 200,000 signatures to send to Warner Bros. concerning their questionably-sourced chocolate frogs.
- The PBS documentary “Is School Enough?” hailed the HPA as a cutting edge model for engaging young people in learning outside the classroom.
But my favorite thing that has happened is that we have persuaded major activist groups and educators that fantasy is not an escape from our world but an invitation to go deeper into it.
- With our Superman is An Immigrant campaign we collaborated with immigration reform leaders to begin changing the conversation on immigration.
- Everyone from Hank Green to major progressive organizers (like the AFL-CIO – the largest federation of labor unions in the US) are helping us take back the narrative of the Hunger Games story. We had an op-ed in the LA Times and a campaign video with nearly a half-million views and we’ll keep going until the odds are in everyone’s favor.
- In 2014, the Pearson Foundation will be working with us to put both Superman Is An Immigrant and Odds In Our Favor into public school curriculums.
This year the Nathan Cummings Foundation has given me a fellowship as one of the 3 most innovative change makers in the US. I got to headline an event on peacemaking for elementary school students with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, and I met with folks from the White House to offer advice on creating a more civically engaged culture. I am proud to say that the story of what you and I are doing together is being heard loud and clear.
Can you stop and think about what all this means? What we are doing is unprecedented: we are using the stories that we love and changing the very nature of social change and education.
This is no small thing, and it happens because of members like you.
I’m hoping that you can help make 2014 our best year ever at the HPA. If you believe in the power of stories to change the world, please invest in us with a small donation.
Thank you joining us on this journey and have a Happy and Healthy New Year!,
Andrew Slack
Executive Director
the Harry Potter Alliance
