by Michael Sacco

At Cryptozoic, “Fans First” isn't just an empty motto; it's our philosophy in everything we do, from our product releases to our Organized Play events. And a huge amount of what we do to enhance the fan experience for OP events is made possible by our dedicated corps of volunteers. We have hundreds of volunteers worldwide that assist us in our OP events, and each event wouldn't be possible without them. Some volunteers go above and beyond, though, and we make sure their efforts don't go unnoticed by awarding them Volunteer of the Year.

This year we thought we'd celebrate the efforts of our Volunteer of the Year in a whole new way. A delicious way. A frosted way. We got cupcakes, baby! That's me in the photo, posing for scale.

In honor of our Volunteer of the Year, Julia Smith, and her 366 days of service in 2012, we ordered 366 cupcakes – more than enough for our Darkmoon Faire attendees to share in the celebration. Everybody gets one! OP Manager Kyle Heuer had the idea of getting cupcakes for all of our DMFers in celebration of Julia's work: “It's difficult for these events to run without sugar, but even more difficult for them to run without volunteers like Julia.”

We'll have an interview with Julia later on in the day, where we'll talk about her exploits throughout the year, but at the moment we have some cupcakes to eat. Three hundred and sixty-six of them.