Last year, a little annual charity get-together in Minnesota got a great deal of attention from a wonderful little Star Wars poster that warmed many a jaded jedi’s heart. “Treebacca” was a design put together by THEY, a talented design group, and it swarmed across the net and sold out quickly (click to enlarge on the right). The event itself is a yearly showing of the Star Wars Holiday Special sponsored by the MN Film & TV Board to benefit Toys For Tots. The same goes for this years showing, which will occur on “Life Day” and will be adding another beneficiary- Aidan, of Aidan’s Monsters.
If you weren’t aware, Aidan is a 5 year old boy who was unfortunately diagnosed with Leukemia earlier this year. He’s received a significant amount of attention and help due to a clever website started by Aidan’s families that is helping to accumulate financial support by taking advantage of two of Aidan’s favorite things: drawing, and monsters.
Through an Etsy store that has been overwhelmed with order in the last few months, the family started selling Aidan’s adorable monster drawings to help finance his medical expenses. This years MN showing of the Holiday Special hopes to help that effort by contributing some goodwill of their own, including selling Aidan’s special Yoda drawing done specifically for the event!
We love a good cause at CHUD, especially when it combines Star Wars, cute kids, well-designed posters, and monsters! So with that in mind we wanted to do our own part by presenting to you this year’s poster for the the screening, “R2 the SnowDroid!”
They are 18″x24″, hand screen printed on French Papers “Butcher Blue”. Limited edition of 100 with 25 special editions on snowflake paper.
Buy it here…
…and check out the contest below.
Like last year, the poster will be available at the event, and online through the THEY Etsy shop. The design of the poster is by Clint of They, with the illustration coming from Alison Lindburg (a surrealist painter with some sick work on her site). Christopher K. Grap (Production Services Manager on the MN Board) had this to say about the event and Aidan’s involvement…
“This whole thing started because I want as many people as possible to see this atrocity but I wanted to do something positive with it. That’s where the idea came to do it as a toy drive. Every year this event gets bigger and badder and all you need to get in is a toy donation. This year we have volunteer costumed characters from the 501st Legion on hand to take photos with guests, a written letter of apology from Pat Proft (one of the credited writers of the special) and an intro filmed by Transylvania Television (a local web based series about monster puppets in Transylvania). Last year I was told our event was the second largest single event event for Toys for Tots in Minnesota.
A few weeks ago I read a story about a 5yr boy named Aidan Reed that loves monsters. He draws them all the time and dresses up pretending to be these characters. He sounds a lot like my 6yr old son, Dax. The difference is Aidan has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. His single income family was facing an uphill financial battle considering all the medical expenses as well as coming to grips with Aidan’s illness itself. They created an Etsy store to sell some of Aidan’s work at $12 to help with costs. I reached out to the family to see how I could help. I told them about the event this Wednesday and Aidan has drawn a Yoda for our event. The proceeds will go to his family.”
You can find the event’s Facebook Page right here.
We’re extremely pleased here at CHUD to have a pair of the hand silk screen printed pieces, generously provided to us by the team behind the poster, and we’re gonna give one away to each of two lucky Chewers. While we hope you enter the contest, make sure to support Aidan, THEY, and the MN Film Board‘s event by buying a poster and, of course, attending the event if you’re nearby! There aren’t a ton of posters available right now, but I believe there might be more after the event itself, so keep an eye out if you don’t get over there in time!
To win a poster, simply do the following…
1: Send an email to this link with the subject line “Contest – SWHS”
2: Include your name and address in the email.
3: Sign up for the CHUD Newsletter
4: Take a look at Aidan’s site and tell me which of his pieces is your favorite.
Good luck, and big thanks to THEY and the MN Film & TV Board!