Fire Relief for THE TON

When we started THE TON – it was out of an earnest effort to highlight the motorcycle community in the pacific northwest, but also to help tie together groups of people with a shared passion across a wide swath of different groups. We wanted to bring together a sense of community and put that in front of others so that they too could be part of the community. We entered this five years ago with the thought of it more as a magazine dedicated to storytelling and community building, and less as a financial windfall.

Those who know publishing, know it isn’t always the most financially lucrative business. So, with open hearts we pursued a dream of doing what we can to support this community that we love. During this time, we never thought we would have to turn to the same community and ask for support of this kind. But life is funny that way.

In the morning hours of December 15, we woke up to messages that a fire had started in the building next to where our magazine’s office was. By the time we were able to get downtown the building was engulfed in flames as well as a substantial part of the block.

The three-alarm fire gutted our building, and impacted many businesses in downtown Olympia.

King 5 News

By evening it had become apparent that for us – everything was lost. The fire consumed our entire business inventory, hard assets for shipping and car/bike shows, as well as reference materials and other materials to make the office a comfortable place for visitors. More emotionally, it destroyed everything we had been working for the past several years. But it is my hope it does not destroy our dream.

In addition to the magazine loss, the office served as a storage space for our artistic output for the last 25 years including negatives, hard copies of publications, and much more. To say this loss has been emotionally devastating would be an understatement.

The reality is beginning to become clear that insurance will not begin to cover the loss in any material or significant manner based on several conversations over the past 24 plus hours. Additionally, the outpouring of support online has been great, so we are now turning to you to help us through this time.

We have decided that while we continue to figure out our plans moving forward, we would reach out to our community for any support they may want to provide. Even by our most conservative estimates the financial loss of this is large. More than we would ever be willing to ask for. But we also are positioned to be able to create more income in the coming month(s) so know that this will help us bridge the first quarter of the new year.

Your contributions would do the following:

• Help us restore stock that could be utilized for the business.

• Recoup some of our VERY substantial losses in personal property.

• Help with purchasing our lost shipping and bike/car-show supplies.

• Better prepare us as we move forward rebuilding the business as we move forward and (fingers crossed) re-establish a new office in Olympia at a fair market value on par with what we had been paying.

We have been active keeping our friends and loved ones up to date on Instagram ig:thetonmag – and we want to extend a sincere pitch to our community to consider helping all the other amazingly talented businesses affected by this disaster.

Thank you for your kind generosity, your supportive spirit, and simply for caring.

-Timothy Girsham, Editor, The Ton.