Hello Echoers!

Exciting happenings to share! First of all, our Star Trek community fundraiser for Esther's Echo was a huge success! In total, between online donations on GoFundMe, cheques I received, and donations through the Esther's Echo website we raised nearly $12,000CDN. Remarkable! This blows our previous fundraising years away. Not only did Star Trek fans come through for the fundraiser, but also cast and crew members of Star Trek who donated and showed public support on their social media channels! Look at all these posts!!

Screen caps of Star Trek cast/crew supporting the Esther’s Echo Star Trek community fundraiser

With this funding, we've secured both Women in Action Development Project locations through until 2024. We will likely begin a new fundraising campaign this Summer and hopefully we can engage this community of donors again. Speaking of which! This Saturday January the 14th, I'm joining another “TREKtivism” (Star Trek Activism) panel as part of a day-long streaming telethon called TREKtalks2 hosted by the Trek Geeks podcast Network. The stream starts at 9:45am PT / 12:45pm ET! If you can't make it in person, the stream will be recorded and posted on YouTube. I'll be talking about how fandom can help catalyze social change including our very own Star Trek fundraiser for Esther's Echo. Look! I'm next to Commander Riker!

You may recall TREKtalks1 from last year where I was also on a TREKtivism panel. This is the 4th TREKtivism panel I've been involved with – two online and two in person at the Chicago Star Trek Convention and then Vegas this past August. I'll be joined by Jonathan Frakes (Commander/Captain Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation), John Billingsley (Phlox on Star Trek: Enterprise), Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine), Kitty Swink who also starred on DS9 and is raising support for Pancreatic Cancer Research, and Heidi Roddenberry President of the Roddenberry foundation. The stream will feature many more Star Trek cast and crew all day so if you're a fan you definitely don't want to miss out. My panel is later toward the afternoon.

Star Trek helped raise me. Star Trek depicts a future where humanity has overcome poverty, war, injustice. Esther and her team are the ones really turning the gears on the ground for Esther's Echo. I've always recognized this. Where I saw I could be of support is in connecting her to a wider donor base – essentially “echoing” her work to other audiences. Star Trek is an audience I can connect to and so this pairing is something I've always really wanted to do. Space geeks for social change. And yes, while Star Trek takes place in space, it's really about empowering people and societies wherever we have the opportunity to - whether here on our planet or beyond.

Thank you all so much again! You're literally making dreams come to life for myself, Esther, and dozens of young women and girls overseas. See you on Saturday!

FIND THE TREKtalks 2 stream at: TREKtalks – Trek Geeks Podcast Network

-In Wonder

-Matthew