We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Charlie Russell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Charlie below.

Alright, Charlie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

At Animaru Maid Café, everything we do is driven by our passion for environmentalism, humanitarianism, and activism. We have hosted a variety of charity and fundraising events, raising over $1,000 for a variety of causes in the year 2021 alone. Our most recent charity project was known as “Chekis for Ukraine”, during which we offered custom decorated chekis (aka mini Polaroids) to people who donated to help animals affected by the crisis in Ukraine. Unbeknownst to many, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had an extensive effect on their wildlife, animal shelters, zoos, aquariums, and other facilities focused on the welfare of animals. Through our campaign, we were able to educate our audience about the situation in Ukraine, as well as offer resources for those that wanted to offer monetary aid. The unique concept of our group allows us to combine the cuteness of Japanese maid café culture with a positive message of change, opening us up to a wider audience and allowing us to extend our message further.

Charlie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Animaru Maid Café is a group of activists, humanitarians, and environmentalists with the goal of making the world a better place. With each of our maids and butlers representing a different endangered species, Animaru combines the cuteness of maid cafés with a positive message of change to create our unique theme. At least 50% of the proceeds from each of our events go to charity.

I founded Animaru Maid Café in 2019, using hard work and dedication to raise environmental awareness and curate a team of activists with a passion for endangered animals. Since our debut, we have raised over $1,000 annually for a variety of charities, local, national, and global.

At Animaru, we pride ourselves in our ability to offer a variety of content, both in-person and online! As regular patrons of several local events, Animaru enjoys interacting with our patrons with games, dancing, and stellar service! With regular Twitch streams, Virtual Cafés, and YouTube videos, there is no shortage of virtual Animaru content. We strive to educate our guests on a variety of topics from sustainability to the preservation of a multitude of species!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

At the beginning, Animaru Maid Café was meant to be an event-exclusive performance group. However, when the pandemic hit in 2020, we lost out on our in-person event opportunities. Due to this, we shifted our focus to online content. This allowed us to dive headfirst into the educational aspect of our group, primarily with our YouTube series “Ethical Exchange.” Through this series, we have been able to educate viewers on the impact that the production and sales of certain products have on our environment, as well as discuss alternative methods and products to replace these necessities. We have since begun to focus on in-person events once more, but we now have a designated team of staff members that are able to continue working on virtual and online content.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

As someone who has been an artist their entire life, I can definitely say from experience that certain creative ideas are often not taken seriously, especially in the professional world. People often assume that since my business is considered a “pop-up” (meaning we do not have an established, brick-and-mortar store), we are not serious about what we do. On the contrary, each and every one of my staff members takes our work here at Animaru Maid Café very seriously, and we always make sure to have fun while we do it. If I could give one piece of advice to society, in general, I would say to be more open-minded. It’s easy to look at a group such as mine, with our cute frilly dresses and animal ears, and think it’s all just fun and games, but a lot of serious effort goes into making Animaru function. Without my incredible team of head maids, admins, and moderators, we wouldn’t be able to maintain an active presence online, which is extremely important in today’s technology-centric world. Animaru is able to educate our audience on a variety of topics, from environmentalism to human rights and more, because we are blessed to have such a dedicated and creative team of people. The next time you are about to judge a book by its cover, take a look inside instead. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and get to know the artists underneath the pink ribbons and animal accessories. I promise you will enjoy what you find!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://animarumaidcafe.square.site/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animarumaidcafe/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/animarumaidcafe/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/animarumaidcafe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpIVaVD0bb2ASKKPZBGm-sw
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@animarumaidcafe

Image Credits
Animaru Maid Café