

Above: Jesse Thorn presents a check to Marisa Aguayo, Anthony Martinez, and Irene Santos of NILC

Maximum Fun’s annual pledge drive – MaxFunDrive – was an enormous success this year, thanks to our kind, generous, and supportive community. In addition to welcoming over 25,000 new and upgrading monthly members, we also brought back our enamel pin sale. Like last year, we put our limited edition MaxFunDrive pins on sale to all $10+ monthly Maximum Fun members. As 2018 comes to an end, we’re so excited to donate the profits from the enamel pin sale to a great organization that could really use some support from our wonderful community.

This year, we decided to donate all of the pin sale profits to the hardworking folks at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). NILC works to protect – and advance – the rights and opportunities of low-income immigrants and their families:

“At NILC, we believe that all people who live in the U.S. should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Over the years, we’ve been at the forefront of many of the country’s greatest challenges when it comes to immigration issues, and we play a major leadership role in addressing the real-life impact of policies that affect the ability of low-income immigrants to prosper and thrive.”

On December 14, 2018 at Maximum Fun headquarters in Westlake, Los Angeles, the founder of Maximum Fun, Jesse Thorn presented Marisa Aguayo, Senior Officer of Institutional Giving at the National Immigration Law Center with a check for $101,922.97.

Joining Marisa Aguayo from NILC were Acasia Flores (Development Program Manager, Data Research and Analysis), Irene Santos (Development Associate), Anthony Martinez (Digital Director), and Robin Aubry (Digital Specialist).

Marisa Aguayo explains what this donation means for NILC:

It’s through the support of your listeners and other supporters and donors that we know there’s a groundswell of support for a better vision for our country that is more inclusionary of all kinds of people. That’s really heartening. And that gives us great hope for the future – and kind of fuels our fight for the future, as well.

And Anthony Martinez adds:

This year we were met with so many challenges – and, particularly, the communities we represent were met with so many challenges- so to see something so great like this [donation], it really brought up our spirits. We’re looking forward to the new year. We know there are going to be a lot of challenges that lie ahead for immigrant communities, but we’re just really thankful for all of the support that your network has shown us.

Maximum Fun believes in trying to make the world a tiny bit better in whatever way we can, and this year in particular, it’s very clear that immigrants could use all of the support we can give. We know MaxFunsters champion inclusivity, value community, and understand the importance of advocating for people who may need extra support, so NILC is the perfect recipient of this year’s donation.

Thank you again for being the most fantastic community we could ever ask for. All of us here at Maximum Fun are so grateful for your continuing generosity towards our network, our shows, and the community at large. As Jesse said, “We’re really proud that our community came together to make this happen so that [NILC] could advocate on behalf of folks that need an advocate.” We couldn’t have done any of this without you, and with your contributions, we hope we can help the NILC make the US a safer place for immigrants.

If you would like to support the National Immigration Law Center as part of the Maximum Fun community, head over to this page to contribute.