It's Essentia's birthday month (actual birthday: March 9) and we're hosting our 6th annual livestream for a good cause!

Quill & Essentia will be playing games, chatting with our viewers, and generally making merry all day on Saturday, March 31st, 2018 -- and we're asking you all to join us for some fun & help us do some good in the world. Wish Essentia a 'very merry unbirthday' by helping her save the bees!

You can find us at http://www.twitch.tv/quill18 on March 31st, beginning at 3 pm BST [10 am EDT]. The livestream will end ... when we're just too tired to go on?

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Charity Info:

This year’s beneficiary is the ‘Bumblebee Conservation Trust’, a bee monitoring & conservation organization headquartered at Stirling University in Scotland, and operating across the United Kingdom. "The only UK charity dedicated entirely to supporting the conservation of bumblebees."

From the Trust's website:"Our vision is that everything we do will help to ensure our communities and countryside across the UK are rich in bumblebees and colourful wildflowers, supporting a diversity of wildlife and habitats for everyone to enjoy.

Our mission is to halt and then reverse the decline of bumblebees.

By achieving these goals we will help create a healthier environment in which we can all live."

http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org

The bee is thought to contribute approximately £400 million to the UK economy each year ($15 billion in the US!), and pollinates approximately 1 of every 3 bites of food. Everything from apples to almonds to avocados, and coffee to cotton to chocolate, as well as about 80% of all wildflowers, depend on the bee. 

The BBCT works in a variety of ways to advocate for the bee, including providing educational resources for children and adults, partnering with farmers, landowners, communities, and other organizations to replant, conserve, and repopulate bee habitats, training volunteers who help to monitor the growth and well-being of existing bee populations each year, and direct re-introduction projects focusing on bringing back bee species that have gone extinct in the United Kingdom.

The impact that the tiny bee has on the world at large, and our basic survival, is massive. And the significant & sharp decline of their numbers in recent years is a serious marker for global environmental health.

Please join us in helping this organization ensure that the entirety of the United Kingdom is "covered in bees!"