Pride of Detroit’s Virtual Charity Karaoke Night with Detroit Lions RB coach Kyle Caskey

Over the offseason, we’ve been toying with our Twitch page to make it something new, interactive and charitable. Our PODcasts are recorded there, sometimes we play video games with fans and players there, and in the last couple months, we’ve even thrown a couple of charity drives together.

But this week we’re taking it to another level.

Detroit Lions running back coach Kyle Caskey will be co-hosting an event with yours truly in an effort to raise money for Caskey’s new charity foundation, the Caskey Family Foundation. Not only will this be a charity drive for an important cause, but it will be an opportunity for all of us Lions fans to get together and throw a virtual party with prizes, rewards, and maybe even a special guest or two.

If you know the Pride of Detroit staff, you know we love our karaoke, so that’s how this is all going to come together. Here’s a rundown of the information you need to know and how you can get involved.

The charity

The Caskey Family Foundation, which was created earlier this month, has it’s first initiative. It’s called Surfaces For Success.

The goal is to provide 100 Microsoft Surfaces to the Detroit Lions Academy—a Detroit public middle school that provides opportunities for children who have fallen behind in the learning process. With Surfaces, the school has an opportunity to provide in-home education, which can be useful any year, but especially when kids and school staff could be at risk of contracting COVID-19 with in-school learning.

You can learn more about the Surfaces For Success initiative here.

The details

Date: Saturday, August 1 — 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: Twitch.tv/PrideOfDetroit

How to get involved

How to donate

Easy, go to Twitch.tv/PrideOfDetroit on Saturday night, and we’ll be plastering the stream with links to donate online. You will be able to donate via PayPal or credit card.

Of course, you can donate to the cause at any time on the Caskey Family Foundation website, but in order to be eligible for some of the prizes and milestones of the Pride of Detroit drive, you’ll have to do it through a special link on Saturday night.

How to sing karaoke with us

1. Create a Twitch account

It’s simple, it’s free. Go to twitch.tv, click the purple “Sign Up” button on the top right, and you can create an account in less than a minute.

2. Download Twitch Sings

Again, it’s free. Simply click this link, and download it to your computer. (Note: I would recommend doing this on a computer, not a tablet). The minimum requirements for your computer are listed at the bottom of the page in that link.

3. Check out the Twitch Sings song list

Unfortunately, not every song known to man is available to sing. Twitch Sings works a lot like the Rock Band or Guitar Hero games, so only a specific amount of licensed music is available. Go here to see the song list and pick out a few songs you’re interested in singing.

4. Sign up

Like karaoke in a bar, we’ll have a sign-up sheet so we know who will be singing next. It’s on a first-come, first-served basis. So, sign up early! Here is the link to the sign-up sheet.

5. Show up!

On Saturday, load up Twitch Sings, head to our live stream on Twitch, and wait for your turn to sing. Please have a headphones setup so we don’t get any echo. (Even earbuds are fine).

Rewards

UPDATE: We’ve added two major prizes: a mini-helmet signed by Kerryon Johnson and a football signed by Jeff Okudah. Here’s a look at everything on the line:

(click to see larger version)

Unlike our previous charitable drives, we want to recognize you for your donations. We’ll have three separate kind of rewards for donators: donation rewards, raffle items, and milestone achievements.

Donation rewards

• $25 donation - Chris Perfett will write a haiku for you about a Lions player or event of your choosing.
• $50 donation - You get to jump the karaoke line and sing next.
• $100 donation - Request any song to be sung by myself, Jerry Mallory or Coach Caskey.
• $150 donation - You get to compose a tweet that will be sent out from my account (@DetroitOnLion). It will be subject to approval to make sure it doesn’t break Twitter’s guidelines.
• $250 donation - Guest post on Pride of Detroit front page (subject to editorial process).
• $500 donation - Appearance on the PODcast for one segment.

Raffle items

For every $20 donation, you will receive a virtual raffle ticket. If you donate more than $20, you get a ticket for every $20 you donate (ie: $100 donation = 5 raffle tickets).

After the stream is over, we will conduct a virtual raffle drawing for several prizes. At this point, we’re in the process of adding some bigger items, but here are some of the confirmed raffle items:

• Detroit Lions seat cushion
• Lions lanyard
• Lions thundersticks
• Lions training camp sunglasses (2)
• Pride of Detroit t-shirt

Each person is only subject to win one prize. If your name is drawn for one prize, you will be ineligible for the other prizes drawn later.

Milestones

Our overall goal for the charity drive is $8,000, but there will be milestones along the way, as well as a couple if we go beyond our goal.

Every $1,000 total donated - We will spin the “Wheel of Humiliation.” This involves myself doing something embarrassing or painful. Examples include: shot of hot sauce, whipped cream to the face, eat a dog treat. If you have any more ideas, feel free to share in the comment section.

Reach $8,000 goal - Jeremy—the noted mozzarella sticks hater—will consume what he is calling a “Mozzarella Sticks milkshake.” Ingredients are TBD, but he’ll try to drink as much as possible without vomiting.

Reach $35,000 - Both Jeremy and Coach Caskey will shave their heads.

The goal of the Surfaces for Success initiative is $70,000 total, but they’re trying to reach that goal over several weeks. If we can get halfway there in one night, both myself and Kyle Caskey have agreed to shave our heads.

Reach $70,000 - ????

If we can somehow hit the overall goal of the initiative in one night. I’ll do something so crazy I haven’t even thought of it yet. Again, suggestions are welcome. Maybe cosplay as someone during a PODcast stream or eat something heinous.

---

So please, show up on Saturday night. If you don’t want to sing, that’s fine; just hang out with us. If you can’t afford to donate, that’s totally okay, too. Just being there increases our visibility to others searching Twitch. Plus, I promise it’s going to be a really, really fun time. Pride of Detroit does not mess around with karaoke.

And consider sharing the charity drive with others!

See (and hear) you Saturday!