While the world sometimes feels like a scary place, it's nice to know that individual people can still make a difference. I originally spoke about the idea of a charity donation during my Kickstarter campaign, but I wanted to be clear that I was raising funds to invest in my business. As much as I like to support charity causes (especially those involving animals) I needed to invest in my business more. It goes back to the idea that you need money to make money.

When my galaxy bats had so many defective products I was worried I was going to have to send them back or destroy them and provide proof. That's generally what happens if I end up with defective supplies. To my surprise, Tonya of Shinedown asked the factory owner to allow me to keep the defective bats to do with as I wanted as an apology for the time, effort, and headache of the whole ordeal. Not only did the factory owner agree, but they also agreed to send me replacements via airmail at no extra shipping charge so my backers could all get bats on time. This left me with all the defective bats and put me in a position where I could raise money for charity with them without sacrificing my investment for my business. Plus I could provide some really cute, if wonky, bats at an even lower price.

To date I have raised around $960 from perfectly imperfect bats. I still have a few left to sell and, should they all sell, it would have put the funds at $1,200. In addition, I wanted to contribute some of my own money to the cause. So I went ahead and, instead of waiting until every last perfectly imperfect bat sold, donated $1,500 to the Organization for Bat Conservation.

I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I can definitely get behind their message. They are the charity behind the #savethebats campaign. In addition, they are local to my state and within driving distance of me! Which is extremely cool. I love the idea that the money is helping bats right in my area, I wasn't aware they were so close! I'm already trying to find a good time to visit and see if I can't see some bats in person.

It's a great feeling to know that real live bats will be able to benefit from the galaxy bats and I'm so grateful for everyone who bought an imperfect bat and helped out and the Kickstarter backers who made it happen. It's also a great feeling that some good was able to come from all the stress of handling such a difficult situation. I hope I'll be able to find more opportunities in the future to give back a bit to animals as they've given me such wonderful inspiration for my plush empire!

If you want to donate to help the bats, too, you can find the Organization for Bat Conservation at https://batconservation.org/. There are other great ways to support them, too, including the option to buy your own bat house or buying some other really cute bat plushies.