The Harry Potter Alliance

By Andrew Slack

March 2, 2010

Tomorrow: Harry's Going To Haiti

Tonight (Tuesday, March 2) at 8:30 pm EST join us live right here as Melissa Anelli and I will be picking the Helping Haiti Heal prize winners LIVE on air!

The timing couldn’t be more perfect: tomorrow at 5:45 am EST a Boeing 727 carrying critical life-saving medical supplies will be leaving Miami and two hours later will be landing in Port-au-Prince and will profoundly affect (in many cases save the lives of) thousands of Haitians. The name of the plane is Harry (as in Harry Potter!). It’s the first plane sent by all of us who made “Helping Haiti Heal” possible and it will not be the last!!! Here’s a picture of “Harry” on the calendar at Partners In Health’s Situation Room of cargo planes to be sent out:

"Harry" on the calendar at Partners In Health's Situation Room for cargo planes being sent to Haiti

In the Harry Potter Alliance we often demonstrate the power of what we can do when we all come together. But last week, it went to a new level as we presented Partners In Health with a check for $123,754.41 (YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT HERE!). Here’s me presenting the chack to Jackson Compere who many of you heard interviewed on the first Helping Haiti Heal livestream:

On behalf of the HPA and Helping Haiti Heal, Andrew Slack HPA presents Jackson Compere of Partners In Health with a check of $123,754.41

On a personal level, it’s difficult to describe what that experience felt like: to be holding a check that represented the goodwill and generosity of thousands of you from all over the world who have come together through our love of story to uplift the story of thousands and thousands of Haitians at this critical time; to meet amazing staff at Partners In Health who have been literally working around the clock saving lives and so graciously let me know how grateful, amazed, and in awe they are by our community – how there is no way they can put into words what the generosity and ingenuity of this community means in protecting thousands of people; to meet the Executive Director of Partners In Health and realize that she is Roald Dahl’s daughter – a man who not only inspired her to start working in Haiti but whose very stories have inspired our hearts and souls since the time we were young children. She told me how much it means that the fans of a work that her father would have loved have come together to help thousands of Haitians.

I walked out of that office dazed and in awe of what we all of us have done. In awe of every person and organization who donated prizes, every individual who donated money, of Melissa Anelli and the entire team at Leaky, of Mugglenet, Wizard Rockers, HPANA, Fiction Alley, of every facet of the Harry Potter fandom!, of the Nerdfighters who went above and beyond any expectation that any of us could have ever had, of the twenty other fan communities who joined us in an unprecedented coalition to help Haiti: a coalition of united fan communities that have only started to come together to renew the spirit of our lives and the spirit of our world.

Join us tonight, send your prayers and best wishes with “Harry” tomorrow, and continue to join us in the weeks and months to come as we continue shining through dark and difficult times with the greatest weapon that exists: LOVE.