Meet Stephen Machuga

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Machuga.

Hi Stephen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
I run military charity Stack Up, supporting US and Allied veterans through gaming and geek culture. Think Dungeons and Dragons, Pokémon, video games, etc. We help veterans through our pillar programs: 

Supply Crates: sending boxes of games and gear to veterans deployed to combat zones, recovering in military hospitals, or struggling back home. 

Air Assault: flying disabled or deserving veterans to various gaming events like ComicCon, gaming studio tours, or esports events 

Stacks: 30+ teams of volunteers getting out into their community and doing volunteer work locally 

Stack Up’s Overwatch Program (StOP): peer-to-peer veteran suicide prevention online 

Phalanx House: a $2M mansion retrofitted into an “adult tree fort” gaming-focused community center for veterans based in Los Angeles 

As far as I go? Eight years, active Army from 98-06. Captain, Airborne, Ranger, Infantry, then went to Intelligence at the four-year mark. Spent a few years in DC doing government contracting work making good money, but wasn’t happy. Then, I started doing charity work on the weekends back in 2010, and the rest is history. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not even remotely smooth. Every year is a fistfight to raise the money we need to keep the lights on and help veterans. Remember that whole “never forget”? Well, the world has moved on and forgotten. And every year we get away from 9/11, my job gets a little bit harder. Pair that with an economy in the toilet and a country in figurative flames right now, and who has money to donate to charity for anything? Everyone has their own chaos to deal with. On top of that, add Ukraine and Gaza to the mix to remind folks about the human cost of war, and it’s been a rough couple of years for us coming out of COVID. But we survive. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar with what you do, what can you tell them about what you do?
Sets us apart from others? Well, we’re the only charity out there doing what it is we’re doing: using gaming to keep veterans happy and connected with one another in the hopes that keeping them talking with one another will be the thing from killing themselves. My new motto for this next 10-year block with the charity will likely be “Happy Veterans Don’t Kill Themselves.” A little aggressive in 2024, but it really punches you in the face and drives the point home with what we’re trying to do over here with Stack Up. Things I’m most proud of? Keeping this train on the track and continuing to support veterans after all these years. This year will mark over 50,000 veterans supported with Stack Up, and that’s a hell of an achievement. That’s a lot of happy veterans, and somewhere in the mix, we helped keep some of them alive. That’s good enough for me. 

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Always take the meeting. No matter what it is, no matter how pointless or how much of a waste of time it looks like. Time and time again, I sit in a meeting, roll my eyes, don’t bother to take notes, or not pay attention because, in my head, I’ve written the meeting off ahead of time, and then suddenly, whammo: hard right turn into unexpected solid gold. Someone can’t help out, but hey, it just so happens they have a close friend who runs an operation that was looking to give back to veterans, and they were just looking for a place to send the check! 

Contact Info:

• Website: StackUp.org
• Instagram: StackUpDotOrg
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StackUpdotorg
• Twitter: StackUpDotOrg