As if we needed a reason. But we have one, and here it is.
And here’s the “longer than Twitter” version.
One of the things we take pleasure in most as a family, going back to when the kids were little, is playing Super Mario Bros. Nintendo games. We started with Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, we think in 2007 when Rader was beginning elementary school (it was released in November and we might have bought it for Christmas). And from there, Rader found a way to play nearly every Mario game from every era, on the Wii and Wii U, Nintendo DS and 3DS, and computer. For more than half his life, Rader's daily wardrobe consisted of Mario t-shirts with basketball shorts. We collected Mario figurines and stuffed toys for playing with. Every birthday and Christmas brought more Mario merchandise into our lives for all our enjoyment.
I had saved all of the outgrown t-shirts for a quilt to send with him to college. When he died, Rader's grandma, Sue, crafted that treasured quilt for me to keep. I've bought more shirts since then, so we all have a couple in our closets for special occasions.
When it was time to come up with a logo for the foundation, my thoughts immediately turned to Mario. So the four-square logo you see is a section of pixelated 8-bit Mario, taken from right over Mario's heart.