Local nonprofit believes in the 'Magic' of learning
MagiKids, a Rochester-based nonprofit, is showing kids the fun side of learning one mythical beast and arcane spell at a time. The organization provides free starter kits of Magic: The Gathering cards, as well as educational materials to kids across the nation.
They have the capacity to send out 30 kits a week, which means a reach of up to 10,000 kids per quarter. It’s a remarkable achievement for an organization that relies on donations; luckily, Magic is a hobby that generates plenty of surplus materials.
“Every magic player that you've ever known has bulk,” said Matt Decker, brand manager for the organization. “Thousands of cards come out a year, and hundreds of those are never ever going to be played, whether they're just not high powered enough to play competitively, or they're reprints or what have you.”
MagiKids gains its inventory by attending Magic Fests and tournaments and asking for card donations. After their first few tournament appearances, according to Decker, “It got to be this magic spiral of people finding us because they knew we took donated cards and what we did with them. It was not an exaggeration to say that, at one time, we had 2 million cards in hand.”
MagiKids kits come with roughly 5,000 cards and are absolutely free to recipients. Thanks to corporate partnerships, they’ve been able to provide the ancillary things needed for a Magic game, things like deck boxes, deck sleeves, and dice. These items often come from things unsold in retail. Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic: The Gathering, are sponsors.
In an interview with Med City Beat, Decker said MagiKids is so focused on distributing cards because the group sees the game as an educational tool.
“You can apply a lot of the tenets of real classical education to a learning device like Magic: The Gathering,” he explained. “You have to employ reading, you have to read the cards. It's computation, it's math; I have to figure out how much mana I can spend to cast this card against my opponents.”
MagiKids’ education lead is an award-winning middle school teacher who developed a curriculum for starting to play the game. It teaches players the most basic version of Magic, with a quasi-hidden emphasis on the educational aspects. The group provides educational kits to teachers, and is also teaching Community Education classes locally and working with the Rochester Boys and Girls Club. Later this year, they will attend the American Library Association’s annual meeting to continue expounding upon Magic’s educational value.
Locally, MagiKids has an office at 4229 W Frontage Road NW, next door to D6 Games. They have a small gift shop and run their main nonprofit offices from there. For more information, or to get involved, head over to magikids.org, or email info@magikids.org.
Bryan Lund is a Rochester-based writer and regular contributor to Med City Beat
Cover photo: Matt Decker of MagiKids / By William Forsman
