INTRODUCTION
Welcome to one of the many new features and what we’re hoping a staple of our network. Our "Make it Better" campaign will kick off this month as we look to help out several charity groups throughout 2008. We have reasons to help these groups and if our mission is any sort of successful, we’ll be looking to add different charities and possibly even move it to a monthly format.

In the meantime we ask our readership to participate in the program, and you could be doing something that is making a difference, to those who didn’t have the chance otherwise. Star Wars collectors can be a very generous group and have a lot of heart. We're asking you all to help in this unprecedented effort. We have very personal reasons at the heart for donating to these groups. We have taken part in past charity functions, but we really wanted to raise the bar and year-round awareness and do our best in 2008 to reach out and Make It Better.

We’ll donate to the following groups in the name of:

We look to kick this campaign off with a bang by coordinating with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the ASPCA in the online benefit by offering readers of our network a chance to win one of the Toy Fair Lithographs at Sandtroopers.com (Clone Wars) or Well of the Souls.com (Indiana Jones). The selected charities for this round will go to Make-A-Wish and the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). We'll be doing our part by linking our Make It Better scroll to our front page to raise 24 hour a day awareness. We will also be rotating the groups every quarter and offering up a great prize for those of you who want a chance at winning. If we have future guests in our bunker, we'll also ask that a donation of the proceeds are directed towards one of the groups. We hope each and everyone of you can do your part to help us make it better!

HOW DO I DONATE?
We are asking our members to donate three dollars to enter the Toy Fair charity benefit as we plan to split funds raised (less Paypal fees) to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the name of Katie Johnson and the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the name of Scout. Since we have two prizes we'll donate the Clone Wars lithograph from Sandtroopers.com and the Indiana Jones lithograph comes courtesy of Well of the Souls.com.

Account Name = benefit@sandtroopers.com

NOTE: This is for registered forum members only, as we are using screen IDs to select the winners. Three dollars is the minimum suggested donation. If you'd like to donate more than the suggested three dollar amount, please directly email benefit@sandtroopers.com the exact amount you choose to donate. We thank you again for going the extra mile.

SPECIAL THANKS
We’d like to thank Karen Ball (Sturge-Weber Foundation), Biffa Quantz (Make-a-Wish), and Floyd Grimm (a.k.a. TK-9907) for letting us use photos of him wearing his customized Red Cross armor. And last but certainly not least George Lucas. I’d like to borrow a quote from a letter he sent to the 501st Legion recently, which inspired this campaign. "We exemplify one of the greatest messages in the Star Wars films – that one person’s devotion to a greater good can make a difference. May we all collectively and individually continue to make that difference." We can only hope to put those words to use in our Make It Better Campaign.

United We Find!