Richard Armitage posted this on Twitter today:

@YoungMindsUK From Jade Zelkowicz at Young Minds. Thank you for all your help and support. pic.twitter.com/PJzJdlVcde

— Richard Armitage (@RCArmitage) April 22, 2015

I am only mentioning this here because some of those thanks go directly to YOU! Those of you who kindly and generously chipped in money last year for the little badging project. I was prepared to get that off the ground myself, but you insisted on contributing money towards it. It quickly became clear that there would be more contributions than were needed to cover the costs of making and posting the badges. And after my lapse with the “deRAnged” slogan, I decided to choose YoungMinds as the charity to donate the surplus to.

A first donation of 250 € (318 $) was made in September, then followed by a second for badge print run #2 which again resulted in a surplus of 175 € (218 $).

This is what YoungMinds had to say back then in response to the donations:

Thank you so much for supporting YoungMinds! This will help us to continue our vital work improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. As a reward, we say you now have full authority to feel good about yourself and enjoy everything you do for the rest of the day. Tomorrow too. In fact, as long as you like.

Go, pat yourselves on your backs. Well done! I was thrilled to be the executor of this little scheme and am more than happy that we did not only bring some of the fandom members together with our badges, but that we supported a great cause while doing so. You are a generous, caring, supportive bunch, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s been a true pleasure being involved in this. And thanks to Richard for highlighting both the cause as well as the results.

PS: Still have some badges left over, btw. If you would like one, send me an e-mail.

PPS: If you want to smile even more, check the badgers’ gallery for some of the photo evidence of the scheme 😉