We are very excited to share this news with everyone involved with Fandom Rocks. After the jump, there are vague spoilers regarding filming the end of Supernatural Season 3. They are very vague spoilers, but if you absolutely cannot click past the jump, we will see you after the finale to share the news. Now … onto the news!

Hello out there Fandom Rockers!

As some of you recall, we recently finished Campaign Two, where our funds were divided between the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund and the Lawrence Humane Society. During Brande’s visit to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund offices, they presented her dad, a former Marine, with one of their special IMSFF challenge coins. This presentation meant a great deal to him, and after he explained the significance of the coins, to Brande as well.

The challenge coins have a long-standing history in the military, especially in the Marine Corps. Among service members, they are a way of verifying service in or with a particular unit. When they are presented to someone outside the unit, they represent meritorious service on behalf of that unit.

After arriving home from Camp Pendleton, Brande found herself thinking about the debacle at the Creation Convention in Chicago, where Jared and Jensen were given Special Forces coins, which later turned out to have been presented by a man who misrepresented himself. Most of us have heard the story, so we won’t rehash the details.

Brande emailed our wonderful contact at the IMSFF, Angela McCrary, and inquired about possibly receiving a few of their challenge coins to present to Jared and Jensen. She explained what had occurred in Chicago, and how she felt this would serve to not only replace those coins on some level, but to promote the IMSFF and Fandom Rocks to the cast and crew. She felt that the show deserved the coins because without Supernatural, there would be no Fandom Rocks, and without Fandom Rocks, there would have been no contact between the fans and the IMSFF.

Brande received an enthusiastic response from Angela, and two challenge coins were sent to her to be presented to Jared and Jensen. There began a month of nail- and cheek-biting.

In order to be “valid,” a challenge coin must be presented by a member of the unit for which the coin is issued. In other words, regular people like all of us could give someone a challenge coin, but the meaning of meritorious service to the unit would be invalidated. Brande had to find a Marine, specifically an injured Marine, to present those coins on behalf of the IMSFF, Fandom Rocks, and the fandom in general. She tried to find ways to arrange this, such as having a Wounded Warrior attend Creation LA with someone from Fandom Rocks, but it just was not meant to be, mainly because she is the Fandom Rocks contact closest to LA and could not make the trip for financial reasons.

Enter Bobby. Or, rather, his wonderful alter ego, Jim Beaver.

Brande has Jim on her friend’s list on her personal MySpace account, and in a burst of inspiration, messaged him to ask for assistance. She was hoping he would be willing to present the coins for us, or barring that, might know some other way in which we could arrange a presentation. Having seen him mention his years of service in the Marine Corps, she knew that he would understand the significance of the coins.

She explained that we needed a Marine to present the coins. She offered up every bit of qualification and verification that she could, including contact information for the IMSFF, Fandom Rocks, etc., as she wanted to assure Jim of our validity and good intentions. Jim messaged back after verifying the information provided and agreed to present the coins for us when he returned to Vancouver to film the final episodes of Season Three.

Brande shipped the coins to Jim several weeks ago, along with a poster Dana designed with the names of all the Fandom Rocks contributors on it. On his return to Los Angeles, Jim was gracious enough to share this picture from the set, which was taken when the coins were presented to Jared and Jensen.

In Jim’s own words:

I explained to Jared and Jensen, separately, what the medallions represented and the nature of the organizations (IMSFF and Fandom Rocks) behind the presentation. I took special pains to make it clear that I had investigated the credentials of the organizations in order to avoid any embarrassment such as happened in Chicago. I explained to them that, ideally, the medallions should be presented by an injured/wounded Marine and that while I was not an injured Marine, I hoped that my status as a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War was sufficient to the purpose. They both indicated that they were very touched by the award and by the interest that our troops in the Middle East have shown in Supernatural. Later, we took a break from shooting a scene for the season finale of the show and had one of our camera operators record the presentation on my camera. (So the slightly soft focus is my camera’s fault, not Brad’s! He’s a great camera operator.) And then we all went back to work.

As I say, I think the guys were very pleased and honored.

We would like to give special thanks to Angela at the IMSFF, for her assistance and her work with the Wounded Warriors, and to Jim for taking the time and effort to assist Fandom Rocks and the IMSFF with the challenge coin presentation. We would also like to thank everyone in the fandom, most especially to the contributors of Fandom Rocks. All of your efforts gave us the reason and ability to make this happen. It has truly taken the effort and energy of an entire group of people to accomplish this goal, and to accomplish it so successfully. I cannot envision a more fitting moment for this presentation to cap off our campaign than during the filming of the finale!

And now … let’s see what we can do with Campaign Three! Onward and upward!

*The picture is exclusive to Fandom Rocks, as it was presented to us by Jim himself. Please do not repost this picture in any other groups or take it for fan art. If you would like to share this information, we would greatly appreciate links back to this post instead.