Love Your Local Heroes

Please. Everyone. Click on over to https://www.loveourlocalbusiness.com/base/showcase23?region_id=us&content_id=1718&tab_id=7 and just click VOTE HERE. You don't even have to sign in. 

Intuit is granting 15 small businesses $5000 from Dec 3 to Dec 17. Our "up to 500-word essay" got cut off at 100 words but I've posted it below. Intuit says the more votes, the better our chance to win. Please vote today.  https://www.loveourlocalbusiness.com/base/showcase23?region_id=us&content_id=1718&tab_id=7

"Epic Heroes" is a Washington State charity and nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering children and teens with special needs by creating new super heroes and role models for them.

With a team of volunteers, we wrote, filmed and produced an entire season (twelve thirty-minute episodes) of our action/adventure show, "Epic Heroes." Episodes are completely free to watch online. The actors are teens and preteens who live with the real conditions that their characters do -- Type 1 Diabetes, Autism, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Down Syndrome, and other challenges. Even now that the first season is complete, the cast and parents of the actors continue to stay in touch because all of these strangers have become friends. And all of us continue to volunteer hours every week, even as our lives get hectic with the holiday season. The children, teens and adults involved with "Epic Heroes" are so passionate, so dedicated to this show... because we aren't just changing the lives of our viewers -- we're changing the lives of our own children, brothers and sisters.

Our wish is to continue. To create a second season of all new episodes. We're not a viral video of a cat in pjs but fourteen thousand people have watched our episodes and encouraged us to continue. To create Season 2 of the show, we need props, equipment, permit fees, a transportation budget, and food for the cast and crew during shooting days. We also need funds to release the episodes on DVD, to get our central preteen and teen cast into schools to speak, and to spread the word about the show. With careful budgeting and our team of volunteers, $5000 could produce six entire episodes of "Epic Heroes."

This is our holiday wish. To continue to help these kids. Kids like my kids -- Maxwell and Faith -- who live with autism and Type 1. I have been so blessed to be the writer for this show. It has been an honor to be able to reach my kids in a way no one has been able to before. This show proved to them, they are heroes. All of the children on the cast are heroes! Whether they are wheelchair-bound or deaf or face another condition, they deserve to see themselves in a show that lifts them up, that never patronizes them, that gives them hope and adventure and dreams.

Please help "Epic Heroes" continue.

Jennifer DiMarco

Save the Show with Words

What?! How can words keep Epic Heroes going? Don't we need cold, hard cash to buy props, pay for transportation and food and all those other things?!

Nope :)

What we need more than anything else right now is talk. Buzz. Exposure. Attention. Words.

At this stage in the show, we need people to comment on the episodes on YouTube. To share links to the website. To invite friends to Like the Facebook page.

How does this help? It gets people talking and sharing about the show. And as the network of people talking about the shows grows, our community grows. Ad us out community grows, we show up more frequently in search engine result. We qualify for partnerships. We look better during grant application review.

Have you ever come upon a user on YouTube or Vimeo or a forum who you think would love Epic Heroes? Turn that thought into action. You don't have to email us and ask us to do it. Be personal. Be passionate. Share a link to an episode! 

What else can you share? Lots!

If you find a company, user on YouTube or Vimeo, Facebook page, local business, grant program, or any other organization, that you feel might be willing to help get the word out about the show, here is the vital information you need to discuss the show:

We are a registered Washington State nonprofit charity.

We are filing for our federal nonprofit status as soon as we raise the $400 filing fee.

We have already completed the entire first season of the show with everyone volunteering.

We have planned the entire second season, written the first script and are ready to shoot.

Our website, where all the episodes can be watched for free, is http://epicheroes.blueforgeproductions.com

Our goal tracker toward being able to shoot the first episode of Season 2 is found at http://epicheroes.blueforgeproductions.com/donate.htm and people can also make general donations there.

If folks have questions, they can email ourepicheroes@gmail.com (or you!) or call 360-550-2071 (or you!).

Our goal is to empower disenfranchised and special needs children and teens by creating new super heroes that embark on epic adventures. Want to know more about our mission and read testimonials from viewers? Go here: http://epicheroes.blueforgeproductions.com/mission.htm

Our central actors live with the conditions (autism, OI, Type 1) that their characters do.

Want to read press and blogs about the show? Watch interviews with the crew? Visit http://epicheroes.blueforgeproductions.com/press.htm

If you need to register at a forum or site in order to send a message or leave a post, don't choose an Epic Heroes user name. Just use something casual and natural, such as a derivative of your own name or a nick name.

In general, when speaking with people about the show, don't use business-talk. Talk from a personal stand point. Such as: These kids are my neighbors. These are my kids. This is a cause my entire family is dedicated to. That personal connection will get more attention than something that sounds like a pitch or some kind of slick request. 1% of the people you contact will result in a positive result. Follow up (where applicable) on any contacts will increase the chance for a good response.

Contacting the same places won't be a negative since we're coming from a personal position. The important thing is that we spread the word.

Of course... you don't want to share ALL of this information at once LOL! Just share a single link. Talk about your own connection to the show. Your own dedication. All of us worked so hard to make an amazing firs season... now let's tell the world about it!