In 2011, a friend of Lisa’s got her involved in Desert Bus for Hope, a week-long fund raising event that raises money for Child’s Play Charity. That year, she submitted 3 aprons embellished with beautiful Cooking Mama applique’s.
The following year, in 2012, for Desert Bus 6, Patrick came up with a last-minute idea for an illuminated Portal testing chamber sign people could hang on the wall, and the idea for the Light Box was born.
The first one was a rather rough design. It was all hand made with a very bad grasp on frames and how to properly make them. Overall it turned out decent with its hand cut lettering and uneven lighting. However, the folks in the Desert Bus chat were very excited to try and win that Light Box. It was one of the highest sought after items pulling in thousands of dollars for the Children!
For Desert Bus 7 (2013) Patrick decided on two Light Boxes with a new and improved frame design. The new design is lighter, yet stronger, and looked far superior. And the folks of the Desert Bus chat must have noticed too! The first Light Box to go up for auction was my Mario “Castle of Koopa” Light Box. It brought in an amazing $1650.00 in bids during its live auction.
The second one, “99 Problems” was a bit more traditional in design but was even more desired than the first. 99 Problems was done as a donation drive. This means that everyone to donate $10.05 had a chance to win. Also, anyone could send in multiple donations as long as they were in increments of $10.05. When everything was said and done and a winner picked, the funds raised were $19,557.30! Then there was a twist. The winner, Pugus85, gave his prize over to one of the Desert Bus staff, Andrew, as a gift! Totally surprising everyone and making Andrew the happiest person alive at that very moment.
This time for Desert Bus 8 (2014) Patrick changed things a bit. He shrunk the design down to a more hand held idea. The light boxes are now only 12 x 9 x 2.5 inches in size but function exactly the same way! And for this years donations he has sent in 5 light boxes! He paired them up so there are two light boxes per winner and one pig sweetener. Seen below are 42 Universal Answer and That isn’t Science as a pair and 99 Problems and 75 as a pair. Then the pig sweetener is World of Goo.
