The 12 Days of the Spiral have once again come to Wizard101 and Pirate101. As with previous years, this festive event kicks off with our charity mount the Noelephant. While I actually loved the Fa La La Lama from last year, I still vividly remember one of our designers coming up with the idea of the Noelephant. I actually laughed/snorted out loud at the comedic idea of an elephant dressed up in Christmas garb and the wonderful play on words. Something that I really love about our creations at KingsIsle is the humor and the light heartedness of their personalities. But there is a serious side to this event, just as our characters in game take themselves very seriously. At the end of this year’s charity drive you, our players, will have helped raise almost $400,000 for charities targeted at improving the lives of children. Our hats are off to all of you for your generosity in helping improve the lives of so many that these charities touch!
Over the last few years we have been thrilled to work with two great charities here in central Texas. The Children’s Medical Center at Legacy in Plano is an award winning facility that provides excellent care to children in the greater Dallas area. The Austin Children’s Shelter provides critical resources and services to children, youth and families recovering from abuse and neglect. We are thrilled to continue to support these two organizations through your generosity.
This year we expanded the charities in the program to include Make-A-Wish® Central & South Texas. All of us at KingsIsle were extremely touched when Ryan and his family came to visit. We saw firsthand what kind of impact Make-A-Wish has on families and wanted to expand our support beyond visits. As a complete coincidence, we are actually hosting another child and his family today. We received this request less than two weeks ago and it seems fitting that the schedule worked out so that they are here on the kickoff of the Noelephant charity event.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season as we head into 2014. Happy holidays from everyone here at KingsIsle!
Now, back to the fun of showing a very enthusiastic child and his family the inner workings of the Wizard101 world…
Fred Howard
Vice President of Marketing
