One of our recent additions to our servers at no charge through our non-profit program is the Wake County Autism Society.

The Wake County Autism Society (WCAS) is a nonprofit organization supported by volunteer board and committee members. They are an affiliate of the Autism Society of North Carolina (ASNC), which is an affiliate of the Autism Society of America (ASA). They work together to benefit individuals and their families affected by an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

We believe that individuals with an ASD can be productive members of our community or can grow through appropriate interventions and treatments so that they become productive members. In addition, we believe that the Wake County community can grow through acceptance of and interaction with individuals with differences to be a complete community that welcomes a diverse population.

Though we’re in Texas, we received an application from them that really reminded us why we absolutely love this program. In the field that we have asking the organization to answer why we should support them, we read:

We feel that we are an extremely progressive non-profit which is struggling under the weight of so many families begging for information concerning services and programs in our area. As you probably know, it truly is an epidemic, and the numbers of children being diagnosed is rising drastically. Please visit our current website to see what we do. Our current hosting service comes up for renewal in a month, and they are raising the rate on us. A truly ‘free’ hosting service would be a blessing.

I’m not sure why the raise in rates kind of “got me”, but I have to admit it did.

We actually shared some of this application with some friends in a discussion about why we choose to do this and how sometimes it really does just make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Interestingly, one of the friends we shared it with reminded us that we had another friend who lived in that area and also had a son with Autism. A quick email to her and we found out that friend had depended on WCAS for support in her own struggles - and yet that wasn’t how WCAS found us.

This friend also informed us that we had to give them free hosting, which thankfully, we had already decided to do or she may have reached through the Internet and slapped us around a bit.

This was one of those really neat stories that also just happened to demonstrate what an incredibly small world it really is.

The Staten Island Children’s Museum is located on the grounds of Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, New York.

The museum hosts interactive exhibitions and creative workshops offer plenty of opportunities for hands-on, first hand experiences that nurture children’s natural curiosity and creativity. They have public programs like a daily story time and feeding time (watch the museum staff feed bugs!), weekly programs like Clay Day, Crafty Kids, Explore and Discover, and Kidz Cook, in addition to their current exhibits.

Stop by The Staten Island Children’s Museum located at 1000 Richmond Terrace on the grounds of Snug Harbor Cultural Center, or stop by their web site http://www.statenislandkids.org/ to find out about current exhibits, hours, and entrance fees.

The Staten Island Children’s Museum is hosted by DrakNet at a steeply discounted rate through our non-profit program. We just wish they were closer so we could go see them feed the bugs, too.

VORTEX Repertory Company was incorporated in October 1988 to create innovative productions of original work. In its first year, VORTEX presented five productions at Mexic-Arte Multicultural Museum in downtown Austin. From 1990-94, VORTEX operated The VORTEX Performance Café on Ben White Blvd. and now owns its own facility, The Vortex on Manor Road, a cherished home for the arts in East Austin. VORTEX was the first theater to make a home for the performing arts in historically under-served Eastside, now a blossoming Independent Theatre District. The VORTEX facility is artist owned and operated.

VORTEX has successfully produced hundreds of quality performances for more than 16 years and is widely recognized as the pioneering leader in Austin’s alternative theater scene. VORTEX has received numerous awards for artistic excellence including 27 B. Iden Payne Awards and 15 Austin Critics’ Table Awards. More than 200 productions world premieres of musical theater and opera, world premieres of collaborative works and ritual theater, vibrant productions of classics, new plays by Austin playwrights, and Austin premieres of new works.

VORTEX proudly produces original cutting-edge work by internationally-recognized guest artists including Karen Finley, Tim Miller, Quentin Crisp, Heather Woodbury, Rob Nash, and Penny Arcade. This programming brings important work to Austin to enrich spectators and artists, broadens the public’s horizons, and spreads the word about great performers and audiences at The VORTEX in Austin, Texas all across the national arts scene.

DrakNet donates the hosting for the primary theater site at http://vortexrep.org as well as the Viva Vortex site, which is a fund raising site for the theater. Not only does the Vortex put on some fabulous and cutting edge shows, Vortex’s free Summer Youth Theater teams adult professionals with teenagers to instruct students in all aspects of theater and presents in a fully-designed production. This program has a thirteen-year history and has received funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the City of Austin.

DrakNet is proud to be the chosen host of such a cutting edge theater company, as we’re even more proud that we can donate the services so that theater can use their budget to do what they do best - provoke and entertain right in our backyard.

So, we host a lot of groups at no charge. We also realize that some people could think that’s a marketing shtick (or, worse, a marketing shtick that’s not true designed to sell hosting accounts while just hosting one or two domains at no charge), so part of what we wanted to do with this blog was introduce you all to some of the organizations that we - meaning you - help support.

DrakNet’s roots as a company are in philanthropic endeavors - the company was started because I had a non-profit site, and I had a good deal on hosting. In 1996, I started reselling accounts to help defray the costs of the non-profit site, and in July of 1998 we had enough accounts that I thought it was a good idea to create a site just for them with information. Eventually, we had so many accounts that it made more sense to get a server, and eventually DrakNet migrated from a side endeavor to a full-fledged hosting company.

DrakNet’s roots, though, are still alive and well. We never forgot how we started, and over the past 11 years have remained committed to that first focus - supporting organizations with free services so that they can focus their raised money on helping.

The Ferret Aid Society was one of our very first non-profit sites hosted here at DrakNet at no charge.

Located in Mississauga, Ontario, The Ferret Aid Society is a ferret rescue organization run 100% on a volunteer basis. They have no paid employees - they do have a lot of cute ferrets that need homes, though, since they are a “no kill” shelter.

The Ferret Aid Society relies on the donations of animal lovers to keep them running, and we’re glad to do something to help out the fuzzies so that donated funds go to saving ferrets, and not paying hosting fees.

Stop by The Ferret Aid Society’s web site, and marvel at what good use your hosting fees have gone to (and make a donation while you’re there!)