Dear friends,

Last week our friend Gitz Crazyboy (a star of The Yes Men Are Revolting) lost everything in the Ft. McMurray fires, which are still raging throughout the region and destroying everything there. His parents and the families of his two brothers also lost their homes and everything in them.

Gitz is too overwhelmed to set up a fundraising campaign and he does not want to collect money for himself. But his family has been devastated. We’ve launched this fundraising page to help Gitz raise crucial support for his parents, his young nieces and nephews. Their houses and all their possessions were reduced to ashes. They’ve got nothing.

This is incredibly sad—it doubles down on a tragedy that was already unfolding for decades. Gitz is part of a First Nations community that has seen massive changes in the last few decades as the land of the boreal forest has been ravaged by the oil industry. We met Gitz a few years ago when we were making Revolting and he showed us the area—you can see him in the movie speaking about the adverse effects on the land due to industrial expansion, standing at the edge of a huge tar sands operation saying, “We’ve lost everything up here.”

He was talking about how they’d lost everything that had sustained their way of life for generations. Their forest. Their clean air and clean water. But some of Gitz’s family did get oil industry jobs –– jobs that paid for their houses and their possessions. That supported their families and their children.

Now all that is gone too. Generations of traditions were challenged by the oil industry. A lifetime of work has been reduced to ashes in minutes.

These families need help to start again.

Whatever we can collect will go directly to them for their rebuilding efforts. Please dig deep! But even if you can only give a little bit, that helps too. And please spread the word on Facebook and Twitter.

Sincerely,

Mike and Andy (The Yes Men)

Laura Nix (Director, The Yes Men Are Revolting)

Sadaf Cameron (Kindle Project)