Spend a significant amount of time at any PAX event, and you will eventually encounter some folks wearing red shirts with the words “Stack-Up” emblazoned on the front. The ‘U’, stylized like a flashbang is an unmistakable logo. This year, I had the chance to chat with Stack-Up.org’s founder, Captain Stephen Machuga, US Army (ret) about the story of Stack-Up, their founding, and their mission going forward.
Me: Tell me a bit about Stack-Up – what’s your mission?
Capt. Machuga: We’re a military charity that’s all about supporting veterans and active military with their mental health. We have four major platforms: Supply Crates, which send care packages filled with video games and nerd goodness to veterans around the world, Air Assaults, which are kind of like Make A Wish for adults where we take disabled and deserving veterans to gaming and geek culture events like E3, Comicon, or a PAX. We have our Stacks program, which are our local volunteer units that involve both veterans and civilians, and we have our suicide awareness and prevention program which is our StOP (Stack up Overwatch Program) which is our Discord 24/7 team that can do peer-to-peer crisis interventions. That’s primarily for veterans and military personnel.
A Stack-Up Air Assault group at a 2017 PAX event.
Me: Keying in a bit on the Stacks group, how would someone go about finding a local program?
Capt. Machuga: We have a map on our website that shows where all of our Stacks are located, but you can also reach out through the website if you’re interested in getting involved and volunteering and then we would point you in the right direction. Or, generally speaking, we’re not that large, so if you’re somewhere that’s kind of in the middle of nowhere we can help you either start something yourself, or help out online as well.
Capt. Machuga: If you’re interested in helping veterans but not sure how, we’re really the only charity in the gamespace right now. You can head over to stackup.org and there’ll be something there for you.
Thanks to Capt. Machuga for taking the time to talk to me at PAX South this year. One of their big reasons for being at PAX South was that San Antonio has five military bases nearby, and this helps raise a lot of awareness even among active duty military members about their organization. The StOP program is a key part of their work as well. From the moment a user comes to their website, there’s always a StOP button on the lower-right hand corner which can be accessed for immediate help.
This interview was edited for content and clarity.
