Long time DUer Akoto is asking for a little help

[Omaha Steve]

Dear friends on the DU,

It has been a long time since I have raised funds for a fellow DUer. Akoto is a long time DUer on SSI looking for a little help. Rather than just asking for money, he is asking for two things. The first won't cost you a cent. Just subscribe to his YouTube page here: Legacy Ark Games - https://www.youtube.com/c/legacyarkgames . Secondly a cash donation will help him buy some equipment to help provide some small income for him. Marta and I are in on this. I hope you will be too. A K&R for this post will help with visibility. Also see this post where he goes into greater detail about his hopes and dreams: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181675517

Donate by PayPal here: PayPal: rpgsruscs (at) gmail.com

This is from Akoto: It is with humility that I approach the community with a request to help me out with my fundraiser, which I hope to use to grow the followers for my YouTube and Twitch channels, Legacy Ark Games. This will help both myself and any other people I’ve reached with my YouTube videos of gameplay, and streaming of gameplay on Twitch. it’s important for others, with disabilities or without, to know there are games that have accessibility settings that allow them to play a game they might not have thought they could. My low-end fundraising goal is $300, and the high end is $1,000. Anything more than that, if I were so blessed, would be invested into improving the YouTube channel's quality beyond my expectations. I need what I need, and I don't want to take any more than that. A kind person has already donated $50, for which I’m grateful.

I have a gaming-related company interested in discussing a fixed rate contract with me if I can go from 11k to 20k subscribed. With the help of investors, I think I can, but I really have nowhere to ask other than this community I've been a part of for 17 years. I'm a star member, longtime juror, and group moderator. Not a fly by night operation. I can easily manage this from my chair if I get the equipment and funding I need to meet these initial growth goals.

I know making a living from a YouTube channel about games sounds silly, but a lot of people do make a living from it these days, and I can easily manage it from my chair if I get the equipment and funding I need to meet these initial growth goals. That is the essence of my fundraising goal…a way to support myself and help others.

It’s difficult to ask for help, but at the same time, it supports both my good cause and the security of my personal future. The long and short of it is that I am physically disabled and housebound. My parents have both been very ill in the past years, with my dad having been found to have stage 4 cancer, even. It has scared me into the realization that, if I stay pinned under the rules of my disability insurance, I'll be living on the street eventually. For a long time now, I've been wanting to turn a very important hobby of mine into a living as others have done, one which would give me security while still enabling me to help the people I try to help.

My YouTube (and Twitch) channel, Legacy Ark Games, brings viewers along as I try out games contributed to me mostly by kind developers and producers who would like to support my cause. This entertains whoever may wander along, but I hope that it also educates disabled gamers like myself as to which games might interest them and whether the gameplay is accessible for their disability. I know that just watching these videos before I had the channel kind of helped me sanity during really bad pain, which is what inspired me to create it as a worthwhile escape. Now, as I have improved my skills and invested a bit in it, Legacy Ark Games has become a channel which works frequently with developers both to show their games off and to refine them with accessibility options when requested.

So, the goal is to raise the money I need for a piece of equipment to facilitate the growth of the channel, as well as sufficient funding to bring in new followers to the tune of 9k people.

Me again. I hope you help with this worthwhile project.

Omaha Steve A.K.A. OS

X post in GD

[lapfog_1]

1. Done... subscribed and donated directly to his paypal

I can do more in a month or so, please add this to your recurring list of charitable contributions.

Thanks!

[Akoto]

2. Thank you very much for your donation!

I appreciate everything I can get, whether it's a subscription to the channel or a dollar given. I don't plan to take more than what I asked at the high end, as I need what I need at most and don't want to take more from folks than that. Especially in these times! It's very humbling to ask at all.

Thanks for having faith in the quality of my channel and the worth of what I'm aiming to do. It means a lot.

[blm]

3. Come on, DU. Hitting subscribe is free

and changes nothing for you as it helps out a fellow DU member.

[blm]

4. GoFundMe is usually better received.

[Akoto]

5. I'm looking into that. Initially, I thought it was more for proper charities and products...

So, I offered my PayPal address. I do intend to post screenshots to show what I've made, and to cut the fundraiser off after and if I make my upper end goal. I don't want to take more than I need; I feel guilty enough taking what I am!

Still looking into GoFundMe, though. I'll have to check with the SSA on it, too. I'm not sure if any of their billion restrictions on SSI recipients would take issue with a GoFundMe campaign.