Today we’d like to introduce you to Meghann Files.
Meghann, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today?
Volunteering in some form had been important to me from a young age. However, I didn’t find my niche until I started streaming on Twitch. Before I began streaming, I was working full time as an office manager. One day my boss walked in with a week old kitten that had been abandoned and asked if I could take it in. I had no idea how expensive taking her on would be. I had vets suggesting I put her down, but I kept with it and the emergency visits added up quickly. My paychecks were barely enough to cover my monthly bills, but I didn’t want to start a gofundme because I wanted to feel like I earned it. At that time, I had a friend who had been partnered on Twitch for about a year, and it had been suggested by friends multiple times to start streaming myself. So, I set up my channel and let my friends and family know the situation. I was raising money for the kitten’s medical, and they could come by to watch me play Diablo 3 and donate there if they liked. I earned money pretty quickly, which was a huge relief.
At this point, I had noticed many of the same people were coming by every stream. I realized this was their only way of getting social interaction. I have issues with social anxiety as well, and it never dawned on me that these communities online could be helpful. So, I just kept streaming to be there for them. After a while, I wanted to try to do more to help by streaming, so I joined a cause called Gaming for Adoption. It was a crowdfunding group that raised money for parents who had already passed their home studies to pay the fees to bring their babies home. At this point, I was streaming full-time and was able to take on the position of Community Manager for them. Having been someone affected by both sides of adoption, it was fulfilling to help raise awareness of something that had a positive impact on my life. However, when I got pregnant with my daughter, I became very ill and had some complications. This forced me to take leave from both my duties with GFA and streaming.
When I came back to Twitch after my daughter turned 1, GFA had to close indefinitely, and I didn’t look for a new cause at first. When I noticed the other streamers in my community needed a bit of a morale boost, I suggested we pick a charity and do a team fundraiser. I was tasked with picking the organization to raise funds for, and I didn’t make it far into the Tiltify list before the name ‘Anime for Humanity’ jumped off the page. After looking into what they were doing as an organization, my mind was made up. I didn’t even go back to finish looking at charities. Mental health is something I have always been passionate about, but never really found a good way to help. I have dealt with multiple bouts of depression, anxiety issues, addiction, and trips to the crisis center in my lifetime. Also, anime was one of my biggest loves in life. What I didn’t know at the time is that AFH was less than six months old, and had just joined Tiltify. They had done zero promotions of it and were very surprised to find that money was suddenly coming in. Once the fundraiser was over, they reached out to me by email to thank me and to ask if I would possibly like to be more involved with the organization in the future. I said yes, and a couple of months went by before I heard anything else.
The beginning of 2018 is when contact became much more frequent. I was asked to help start their channel on Twitch, and to find a good way to build and utilize it to help further their mission. I happily agreed and started getting very busy trying to make everything perfect, and even brought in some volunteers I had worked with previously. We set up a special week-long fundraiser with my community to help spread awareness about their new campaign and their upcoming channel launch. We did amazingly well, and the founder of AFH decided to write an open letter thanking us. It had me in tears by the end of it, and that’s when I knew that this organization was going to be my home. They run like a family. They appreciate every single volunteer as a person, and they go out of their way to make the AFH community feel like it is YOUR community. I received an email shortly after the fundraiser ended and was asked to take a seat on the board as Director of Operations. This month (March) is my two year anniversary!
These last couple of years have gone by very fast, and so much has changed. AFH went from focusing on just anime and cosplay as a medium, to adding in gaming. We have gone from attending a few cons in California to more cons than I could keep up with all over the US. We had traveled 61,800 miles to hand out over 10,000 therapy kits by the end of 2019, and gone from a small handful of volunteers to having enough that we have to turn some people down for spots at booths. I am excited to continue to watch the organization, its volunteers, and the community grow. Personally, the work that I do there has helped me grow a lot. When I joined, I was mentally drained and broken. I found very quickly that assisting other people in having those hard conversations was helping me do the same, and was finally on a path to healing for the first time in my adult life. 10/10 would do it all over again
Has it been a smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road for myself in regards to working with AFH. I have issues with my self worth. This caused me a lot of anxiety when speaking to people about AFH. The constant voice in the back of my head telling me I’m not worth anyone’s time, people are just tolerating me, I’m going to fail at this, so why try. This, coupled with having anxiety that made it almost impossible for me to be in public spaces, made things rough for a while. But I found that if I focused on helping others, it at least got me out of the door. I would then focus on one of three things: assisting volunteers in learning how to help people, helping people by having conversations about their mental health, and recruiting more people and companies to help AFH grow so more people could get the help they need. As long as every trip out of my house included doing one of these things I could get myself out the door. As time went on, it got a little easier. I had little coping tools for anxiety attacks on the road. I don’t know that I have completely gotten over the self worth bit. I’m human, a work in progress, but the point is I am making progress.
We’d love to hear more about your organization.
Anime For Humanity is a 501©(3) non-profit charity dedicated to using anime, cosplay, and video games as a medium to challenge the stigma surrounding mental health. We attend conventions all over the nation to meet people face to face, start conversations that spark change, and hand out resources to anyone looking for support and community.
We began as an anime club with a passion for anime and community. Throughout our meetings, the anime club became a safe space for members to express themselves, be less introverted, and share their love for anime as their therapeutic support system. We realized anime could bring people together and help people reach out to find community. Many suffer from mental health issues silently. They might not be ready to reach out, know where to look for help, or find the courage to step into therapy. Our mission is to reach them and provide them with hope and the mental health resources they need. Taking time to understand their mental illness and celebrate what brings us together in conventions can be one of the most direct ways we can reduce social isolation and challenge the stigma surrounding mental health.
We believe we can create a world where mental illness is understood, effectively treated, and ultimately prevented. We affirm that attendees deserve to know it’s okay to talk about what they are struggling with. It’s easy to feel hopeless, but we have hope that things will change. We’ll do our part to make sure they know they are HEARD SEEN and LOVED. Through Anime For Humanity, people have the opportunity to make a tangible difference in raising awareness for mental health! You can donate to help us print more Anime Therapy kits and ensure that people have the mental health resources in hand to use in times of crisis.
Over the course of one year, we traveled 61,800 miles across the nation to hand out our Anime Therapy Kits, providing more than 10,000 people with mental health resources they can reach out to in times of crisis. Contributions made to Anime For Humanity drive our ability to print The Anime Therapy Kits and provide them for free to anyone who is looking for hope and professional help.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love that there is always something to do in Dallas, no matter what you are in the mood for. If I had to pick one thing Dallas/DFW has to offer is Quakecon. It’s my favorite thing, and I feel lucky to live here because of it. Not a fan of all the allergens. I don’t get a season off. Just massive allergies all the time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.animeforhumanity.org
- Email: contact@animeforhumanity.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animeforhumanity/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnimeForHumanity/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Anime4Humanity
- Other: https://twitch.tv/animeforhumanity
Image Credit:
Meghann Files, Andrew Baker, LichAndFamous, LovingWarcraft
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