Furries came together for a convention in Milwaukee and also raised thousands of dollars for charity. Fursquared is a convention that started back in 2014. Since the beginning of the convention HAWS has been their charity of choice. Together helping the community and the animals at the HAWS shelter.
You still may be curious what the point of a furry convention is in the first place. Furries are people who are interested in anthropomorphic animals, which are animal characters that have human-like characteristics. You can find many examples of this in popular media and often used in movies made to this day. Conventions for furries have been traced back to 1989. Many people think furries can only wear fursuits but that is not true, it can be anyone dressed up in a costume or not. When going to a convention, you would meet all sorts of people of all sorts of backgrounds, the furry fandom is a very diverse community.
Working with HAWS, Fursquared has been able to help the charity for 11 years. The donations to HAWS have helped many animals that the shelter rescued. HAWS stands for Human Animal Welfare Society, they are a no kill shelter located in Wakesha. In the convention center, HAWS had a booth to represent their charity with dogs and cats to visit and adopt if wanted, but that is only a portion of the animals that they take in.
The booth also provided a space to talk to representatives about their cause or directly donating to charity. There are many services that HAWS can provide. Not only is it an animal shelter but they provide education for kids to be better educated about animals. For helping the community HAWS also hosts an open pantry for pet products for those in need.
At Fursquared there were many events to visit while supporting the charity. There were 6 panels specifically dedicated to charity, but many more panels contributed. The Charity Dance Off event presented participants competing in a one-on-one dance battle competition to determine the winner. There was a 1st place winner, 2nd place winner, and lastly the charity pick winner. The audience determined who won the charity pick by voting in the first round for who they liked most by donating to the charity in their name.
Another event was the Charity Auction. The auction runs like any other auction would outside of the convention. Items sold were donated by community artists, including fun gag items, and decorations, often seen at the event.
For the fun of it, spectators would win an item and re-donate it curious as to how much money it could earn the second time. One of the more notable items happened to be a potato, which was partially eaten and re-donated and sold for more the second time. The Charity Auction brought in the most money, with 9,626 dollars donated.
A community coming together to celebrate themselves and help the community out is not something you will see at every convention. The grand total donated to HAWS is $24,454.03. This year there were 2,128 attendees, and it is expected it will grow next year, so imagine how much more of an impact the furry community will have for a good cause in upcoming years.