What do you do when you’re the host of a late-night faux news show and you’ve got no writers? Well you could sit on your ass, you could mumble at random, or you could do something great with your time and support a charitable cause. But what if your show is all mockery? How do you do something that’s actually good, while poking fun at the same time? Well if you’re Stephen Colbert, and you happen to have broken your wrist a few months back, you do everything you can to “raise wrist injury awareness” – and donate the money to the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which supports injured U.S. soldiers . How do you raise the money? By selling red WristStrong bracelets of course.

“The only thing worse than the pain has been the agony,” the bespectacled funnyman said. “Hollywood has been glamorizing wrist violence for years…and I am fighting back with the most powerful tool known to man—the silicone bracelet! It is go time. Just to put it on requires a wrist—that’s one level of awareness,” Colbert continued. “Every time you look down, it will remind you that you have a wrist. And if you ever forget what the area connecting the hands to the arm is called, you can just look down and it says ‘wrist,’ right there on the bracelet.”

On Wednesday, he encouraged fans to purchase more bracelets and send them to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who may or may not have been sporting a boot on his foot when he was photographed leaving girlfriend Gisele Bündchen’s Manhattan apartment this week. “Now, I know that he injured his ankle, but I have said many times, the ankle is just the wrist of the foot,” Colbert said.

[From E! News]

Colbert raised $17,000 just from auctioning off his wrist cast. Awesome… and kind of gross. He got New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bill O’Reilly, Tony Snow, Katie Couric, and Nancy Pelosi to sign the cast before the auction by asking them to “board the “WristStrong” express.” Between all his fundraising efforts, Colbert was able to hand over a check for $171,525 to the Yellow Ribbon Fund. The charity helps injured U.S. service members who are recovering at the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and provides housing and transportation for them and their families. They also provide job mentoring and internships, and give tickets to sporting and cultural events.