If you’ve ever visited Seattle, then chances are you’ve heard of Scarecrow Video, America’s greatest video store. Of course, calling Scarecrow a video store is like calling the Louvre a tourist attraction. Scarecrow is an archive, a research library, and a lovingly curated collection of dreams, preserved on DVD, Blu-ray, and even VHS tape. But since huge companies have slowly, steadily forced this country’s video stores to close their doors, a day of reckoning has finally come for Scarecrow. To save our Library of Alexandria, a handful of folks are working tirelessly to convert the Emerald City’s shiniest jewel into a not-for-profit business that will help future generations enjoy films often unavailable anywhere else — with The Scarecrow Project Kickstarter campaign.

Perhaps it’s best to let the Scarecrow Project team explain, which they do in their own inimitable fashion in the following video pastiche/mission statement: Instructional Featurette No. 17: “The Video Store and You” (“Part of the Unity Through Film Series”)…

We here at Nerdist would like to add our voices to those of Scarecrow Project co-founding directors Kate Barr and Joel Fisher. Our own beloved editor-in-chief Brian Walton used to be a counter jockey at the venerable institution. When one of my closest friends was in college, her husband taught her algebra by renting the only available copy of the then-out-of-print Disney animated short Donald in Mathmagic Land from Scarecrow. And Scarecrow’s Screening Room has proven to be one of the community’s cultural centers, hosting DVD release parties, book signings, free film screenings, shadow puppet shows, lectures, live Q&As with visiting filmmakers, weekly trivia nights, fan meet-ups, and film club meetings. Please consider donating to one of the worthiest nerd causes out there today.