Buy a Vowel for The Prospering Cheaters: We Can't Prosper Without Your Help

Don't forget eefers is playing in the Scrabble for Cheaters tournament January 19 to benefit 826NYC. 826NYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Based in Brooklyn, it's part of a growing umbrella of youth writing centers across the country, all modeled after Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia writing lab in San Francisco.

Alongside such luminaries as John Oliver ('The Daily Show'), John Hodgman (he plays 'PC' in the Mac/PC commercials) and Peter Dinklage ('The Station Agent'), The Prospering Cheaters be competing in the first annual 'Scrabble For Cheaters' tournament. All proceeds will benefit 826NYC.

The way the tournament works is simple: the more money a team raises, the more it's allowed to cheat. For example, if we raise $25, we'll be able to trade out one of our letters during a game. If we raise $500, we'll be able to invent a word of our choice. The list of cheats is below.

Any support you're able to give our team (The Prospering Cheaters) would be most appreciated. You'll doin' it for us, and a tad more importantly, you'll be doin' it for the kids.

Thanks in advance/happy new year,
Dan & Emily (eefers), The Prospering Cheaters

The Cheats:
1. Trade out a letter $25
2. Wheel of Fortune: buy a vowel $50
3. Flip a letter over and make it blank $100
4. Add 10 to any letter's value $150
5. Add Q, Z, or X to any word, anywhere $200
6. Passport: play a word in any language $250
7. Consult the dictionary for one turn $300
8. Consult the Scrabble word list for one turn $400
9. Reject another team's word $450
10. Invent a word (must have a definition) $500

DONATE TODAY to The Prospering Cheaters, we can't prosper without your help (hey, it's 100% tax-deductible).

Last Minute Tax Write-Off Anyone?

As many of you know, I'm a little obsessed with Scrabble lately. I'm getting pretty good at it. But not good enough to win a tournament without cheating.

Before I began spending my days glued to the computer "professionally," I was a volunteer tutor at 826NYC, a non-profit, after-school drop-in center founded in California (826 Valencia) by Dave Eggers. While 826 helps kids with all of their homework, the main goal of the organization is to support students age 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills.

Great right? A free after-school, drop-in writing lab! Yes! But it costs money to run. That's why I've signed up with my friend Dan(Team: The Prospering Cheaters) for Scrabble for Cheaters, January 19. But it costs us every time we cheat. Plus, we're playing with the likes of John Hodgman and John Oliver (The Daily Show) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent), and frankly we want to kick their asses... while raising money for the kids, of course.

Don't you want The Prospering Cheaters to invent a word in your honor ($500) or maybe just buy an extra vowel ($50)? Also, don't you want a tax write-off before January 1?

Donate to the Prospering Cheaters

Learn more about 826NYC

Thanks and happy New Year!