Earlier today, the gofundme to buy K. L. an accessible van capable of getting him safely and comfortably to Vegas hit $50,000 dollars. With Bill Perkin's matching donation, that means the campaign has the $75,000 it needs. Veronica Brill will finally have a chance to stack K. L.
The campaign to stack K. L. "highhands" Cleeton began on March 8, 2020. Brill launched the campaign on the pretext that K. L. was getting to big for his boots and she needed to stack him. Unfortunately, K. L. has spinal muscular atrophy. This means he is paralyzed from the neck down and would require a customized, accessible van in order to get around the U.S.
So began the "Stack KL" gofundme campaign. Just over a year later, K. L. is getting his van.
K. L. thanked the poker community in a heartfelt note on Twitter. "Thank you," said the caption. The screen capped note went on to add "Thank you to every single person who has donated, retweeted and spread the word, and sent messages of support and kindness."
Brill set this campaign in motion. She has shepherded it to the finish line through a period of high-personal drama as the initial Postle lawsuit came to a close and Postle's abortive counter-suit kicked off. K. L. singled her out for particular thanks.
"I shall forever be indebted to Veronica for putting all of this together," K. L. wrote. "As always, she saw something wrong and did something about it. I can't thank her enough for everything, most of all, just being a great friend."
Good vibes, Mo money, Brill result
When we spoke to Brill this aft she was thrilled by the outcome.
"I'm probably having one of the best days of my life today," Brill said. "I just spoke with K.L.'s dad and he's almost speechless."
Under Brill's orchestration, the poker community pulled together to make this happen. Two key things happened in the last thirty-six hours to bring the project to fruition. The first was a charity stream put on by Brill and several others in the poker community.
The second thing was Johnny Moreno, better known to the poker community as Johnny Vibes, making a generous but fiscally irresponsible announcement that he would put $5 into the gofundme for every single retweet the announcement got. A few big hitters got wind of the tweet and it went viral, making for a big donation from Moreno and some welcome publicity for the charitable stream.
"Donating $5 per retweet," Moreno wrote. "Let's send KL to the moon in his new van."
If you check the list of top donors to the "Stack KL" gofundme, Johnny Moreno is by far the biggest contributor with a $10,000 dollar donation.
The other big names on that list after Johnny Vibes, are Veronica Brill and Jason Mo with $5,000 each. The rest of the list reads like a tournament of champions final table. Bryn Kenney is on there, with Phil Hellmuth (who also crashed the charity stream), Kevin Rabichow, and Academy Award nominee Jennifer Tilly.
Community
The turnout for the stream was both surprising and thrilling.
"Honestly, I did not think the stream would do as well as it did," Brill told poker.org. "I thought I would do one stream every month for the rest of the year to be able to raise the money. I didn't think we would do it in a day."
However cutthroat the game is on the felt, away from it the poker community continues to be a bunch of softies.
K. L. told poker.org that, with the astonishing donations, "the poker world has proven yet again what I've always known. When it comes down to it, we go to bat for each other. I am so thankful to everyone. I can't begin to express how proud I am to be a part of this community."
Featured image source: Twitter
