BFC TV Closing Message

(After the video above)

Before we go, I wanted to say a few words.

I was having trouble deciding what to talk about, until last night when I attended Kiddlit's Bedtime Storytime panel and learned about a book I'd never heard of before. It touched me so much that I wanted to read a very short story for you today.

I did a little research on Frog and Toad and found an article from Madeleine Dobrowski, which I'll paraphrase:

There is something deeply profound to these little stories. They speak to us about the good life, the life we were made for.

Even though it is possible and wonderful for us to accomplish great things, our happiness lies ultimately in relationship and community, not production and efficiency. It’s not that Frog and Toad never work, work is simply not the point. The point of the story is friendship.

I feel a lot of parallels to this story and VBFC.

A lot of our community is different. They've struggled with feeling different. We all get that. Many of us are neurodivergent, many underprivileged, many struggling. And thus many never get those golden opportunities to thrive, to succeed.

We see you. We are you. So we make VBFC as a letter to you, ourselves. We put in so much work, so many late nights, fight so hard to put on the best event we can. But that work isn't the point. The point is that we love this community. We love giving back. We love doing it because that is the point, to all of this.

Our mission for VBFC is to provide a safe, accessible and essential online space for babyfurs to interact, celebrate our shared interests and strengthen our community.

We believe no babyfur should feel loneliness or shame about their harmless interests.

I wrote this at the very start of my time as chair because I needed to know why I was doing this. Why was that our mission, and our vision? Because it is the whole point. We live your struggles, and we are fortunate to be empowered to create these spaces, for you. Maybe it is just a letter we are writing to each other. But we can, and so we do. Because this is the whole point. This. Us. Friendship and community.

As you all go back to your lives, never forget how special you are, each and every one of you. How lucky you are to be a babyfur. How powerful you are to know, deeply, how it feels to be misunderstood and mischaracterized. What an incredible force your empathy can be. And how indestructible you can be as you shed your shame and truly embrace who you are, warts and all.

Babyfur truly is your superpower.