Nine Month Deathly Hallows Campaign Enormously Successful

Boston, MA – After nine months, seven horcruxes, and many successes, The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) is celebrating the official end to the Deathly Hallows Campaign (DHC). “The Deathly Hallows Campaign was a great illustration of why the HPA works,” said HPA Executive Director Andrew Slack. “Members were involved in creative and engaging ways challenging some our world’s greatest obstacles to justice, ranging from inequality, to global warming to negative body image. Our members walked away from this epic campaign not only having helped people across the world, but also receiving a sense of self-empowerment while doing so.” The nine-month campaign consisted of seven issues that the HPA compared to horcruxes – evil objects that Harry must destroy before Voldemort could be destroyed.  The last campaign, or horcrux, was the Climate Crisis. Participants imagined ways that environmental activism could be improved. The contest's advisory board evaluated the entries and the winners received $1000 to make their ideas a reality. The board included:    Congressman Ed Markey; Tim Kring, producer of Heroes; Bill McKibben, celebrated environmentalist; Hank Green and Dan Brown, prominent social media leaders;  John Green and Melissa Anelli, bestselling authors; Christina Lurie, co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles; Anthony Stewart Head, Jason Alexander, and Evanna Lynch; Harry Potter Wizard Rock group Harry and the Potters; Shawn Ahmed, Simon Billenness, and Andrew Slack, all prominent activists. Lynch also participated in the DHC’s work against child slavery in its ongoing campaign, “Not in Harry's Name,” a campaign to get Warner Bros. to make all Harry Potter chocolate Fair Trade. Amassing over 15,000 signatures including some of the Harry Potter cast Lynch's, Jason Isaacs, Mark Williams, and Natalie Tena, the petition received a response from Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer expressing interest in working towards switching to fair trade chocolate. The Harry Potter Alliance will continue communicating with Warner Bros. and fair trade experts in the hopes that Harry Potter's name will no longer be put on chocolate created at the cost of others lives, especially children. Throughout the campaign, the HPA has had many successes. This year’s Accio Books campaign brought the organization’s total to over 88,000 books raised for communities across the world. Nearly 10,000 of those books went to the newly inaugurated Imagine Better library for The New Beginnings Charter School in NYC. Wrock 4 Equality 2 resulted in the HPA helping Massachusetts Equality break nearly all of their call records. And overall, the HPA raised awareness and helped educate its members on topics ranging from depression and poor body image to child slavery and environmental concerns. “The many facets of the Deathly Hallows Campaign illustrate the work of the HPA to come,” Slack added. “We are heartened by our members enthusiasm and the unprecedented network of fan communities that we have built for changing the world.”                                                                                                                                                                                             ###

The HP Alliance (www.thehpalliance.org) is a 501c3 nonprofit that engages Harry Potter fans in social activism. With over 70 active chapters and 40 volunteer staff, the HPA has donated five cargo planes to Haiti, 55,000 books, protection for thousands in Darfur, and made huge strides in anti-genocide, LGBT, and media reform advocacy, and more. Covered in hundred of major publications and praised by JK Rowling, Harry Potter celebrities, Paul Farmer, and a slew of NGO’s the HPA recently came in first place in the Chase Bank Community Giving Contest on Facebook winning $250,000.