Family run games store recovering from flooding

My name is Saeri Geller, and I met Brooke and Courtney at the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo, where they had a booth selling decals, keychains, plush figures, and other nerdy accessories. Pre-Covid, they had a thriving business selling merch at conventions throughout the US, but the pandemic put a kibosh on that. Fortunately, they had their brick-and-mortar store, The Geek Realms, to fall back on. But on May 5, 2022, heavy rains poured 6 inches of rain onto Fayetteville, AR, where the store is located, in under 6 hours. Many homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed, and The Geek Realms was no exception. As a small store, much of their merchandise is stored at floor level, and with 3 inches of water on the floor, most of that merchandise was destroyed, along with a whole shipment of boxes which had just arrived and not been unpacked yet. Then there was clean-up, which cost upwards of $3,000 and kept the store closed for over a week, which meant thousands more dollars in lost revenue.

 

Brooke and Courtney are two of the most amazing, generous people I've ever met. They regularly take in stray animals, help nurse them back to health, and find them forever homes or adopt them themselves. Brooke has been helping to take care of her aging parents as well. They have had a lot of setbacks in the last 10 years and really deserve a break.