As we head into the weekend, we thought we’d give
you an update on the Wooster donations for Southern Asia and let you know about
“Wooster Raffles”, something we’ve been putting together with Swoon, D*Face, and
some other amazing artists:

First, after a bit of recounting today,
we just realized that we have about 25 more sketchbook pages from Mysterious Al
to give to people who donate more than $20. Because of this, we’ve put the
donation button back up on the left hand nav bar. Once these 25 go,
unfortunately there are no more of them.

But don’t worry, Jon
Burgerman has stepped in for round 2….

Burgerman, one of our
favorite artists (and one of the nicest guys you will ever meet in your life) is
donating 100 of his amazing doodles to the cause. Most of you know Jon’s work,
but if you don’t, check out his website href="http://www.jonburgerman.com/">here. So as soon as we run out of Al’s
sketchbook pages, for every donation over $20, Jon will send you one of his
wonderful sketches. Here’s it straight from Jon:
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I was impressed by Mysterious’ amazing
donation to the Wooster collection for the Tsunami Disaster appeal and thought
about what I could give to help. Basically the only thing I’m half good at is
doodling and as Al proved doodles can help. So I’m going to sit down and draw
100 drawings for Wooster to use to help drum up some more much needed donations.
I’ve started already so you can see what they’re goin to be like (each will be
different and of.. ahem.. variable quality). Thanks for your efforts so far - we
must all continue to do what we can to help those affected by the terrible
tragedy.

But wait - there’s more. Beginning next week we’re going to be
adding another layer to the donation drive. We’re calling it “Wooster Raffles”
Here’s how it will work. For every $10 you donate (or have already donated), you
will receive one virtual raffle ticket. So if you donate (or have donated) $30,
you receive 3 raffle tickets. If you donate (or have donated) $70 you will
receive 7.

So at the end of each week, for as long as people want to
donate to the cause, we will be picking - at random from the pool of raffle
tickets- winners who will receive an amazing piece of art that have been donated
specifically for this cause. Artists who will be donating their work for the
raffle include Swoon, D*Face, and many others.

Here’s why we are
doing a raffle - Many artists have sent us emails offering to donate work to be
auctioned off to raise money. But if we went forward with an auction, and if we
did indeed put these pieces up on the site, they will go to the highest bidder
for, in some cases, hundreds of dollars. This means that the price for each of
them will go up so high that the only people who would ultimately “win” the
pieces would be those people who have the most money, not necessarily those
people who want to help the most or those people who are the true fans of the
art and the artists.

Most of the people who come to the Wooster site
each day don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on a piece of art. Because of
this, an auction on the Wooster site would not be really for the Wooster community at all.  It would raise money
but it would not involve the Wooster community of artists and art lovers.
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Because of this, we came up with an idea, a solution - “Wooster
Raffles”.  In this way everyone has a
shot at recieving a piece of art no matter how much money you donate. In this
way the artwork will still be used to raise money, but will not necessarily go
to the people who have the most money. 
Make sense?

So beginning this weekend we’ll
start to let you know some of the artwork that will be included in the raffle.
The pieces, and the artists, are amazing. So keep donating! If you donate now,
you will be receiving work from Al or Jon’s sketchbooks and you will also be
entered into the raffle. We don’t want to stop until we hit $10.000. And we’re
half way there!