Louis C.K. wins $50,000 on "Jeopardy!" and donates to San Jose-based charity 
 
 
 
 
 
 Photo: Courtesy Fistula Foundation Image 1 of / 2 Caption Close Image 1 of 2 Louis C.K., center poses with members of the Fistula Foundation's board on the set of Jeopardy! in Washington D.C. From left to right, Bill Mann (Fistula Foundation's Board Chair), his wife Judy Mann, Louis C.K., Fistula Foundation CEO Kate Grant and her son, Bobby Houston. less Louis C.K., center poses with members of the Fistula Foundation's board on the set of Jeopardy! in Washington D.C. From left to right, Bill Mann (Fistula Foundation's Board Chair), his wife Judy Mann, Louis ... more Photo: Courtesy Fistula Foundation Image 2 of 2 Louis C.K. greets Kate Grant, CEO of Fistula Foundation in San Jose. Louis C.K. greets Kate Grant, CEO of Fistula Foundation in San Jose. Photo: Courtesy Fistula Foundation Louis C.K. wins $50,000 on "Jeopardy!" and donates to San Jose-based charity 1 / 2 Back to Gallery 
 
 Comedian Louis C.K. took part in a Jeopardy! episode for charity, which aired Wednesday, and a local organization wound up winning big. 
 
 Louis went up against journalists from the Washington Post and CNN, and took home the grand prize of $50,000 for San Jose-based charity, Fistula Foundation. 
 
 In the Jeopardy! episode, host Alex Trebek asked contestants to describe their charity, and Louis launched into this explanation of the organization: 
 
 "The Fistula Foundation is a group of people who help women in poor countries who've been injured in childbirth, and it helps them get the medical attention that they need and get them back on their feet," Louis said. 
 
 "That's not a well-known charity," Trebek remarked. "Good for you." 
 
 "No, it's not," Louis replied. "That's why I'm here." 
 
 The Fistula Foundation helps treat women who suffer from an obstetric fistula as a result of childbirth. It's an injury that causes incontinence in women due to a tear between a woman's vagina and her internal organs, according to the foundation's site. The injury can be repaired through surgery, however, women in poor countries who give birth at home often go untreated. 
 
 Fistula Foundation CEO Kate Grant said that the issue has been eradicated in the United States for more than a hundred years, but continues to be an issue in countries in Africa and Asia, which is where the charity does its work. 
 
 "The injury itself tends to isolate women and create social problems, psychological problems in addition to incontinence," Grant said of the injury. "The good news is that most of the times in the hands of a trained surgeon, the injury can be fixed and the woman can be given back her confidence and her health." 
 
 Louis has worked with the charity in the past when he had suddenly given the foundation $40,000 following his Beacon Theater stand-up special in 2011. Grant said the charity was recommended to Louis by a friend, and he wound up helping the organization with the proceeds from his special. 
 
 Grant said that given the subject matter of the charity, it's even more special that Louis is helping the organization. 
 
 "It shows to me even a great deal more about this brilliant comedian and writer, what a big-hearted person he is," Grant said. "If you think about the pitch, 'We want you to talk about incontinent women,' how many celebrities would be like, 'I don't think so. Can't you find some other Save the World thing where I don't have to talk about incontinence and vaginas?' I mean, it's still too amazing to me that he did this. We love him." 
 
 Louis' win wound up sending a surge of visitors to the Fistula Foundation site, which crashed after the Jeopardy! show aired. The site is back online as of Thursday. 
 
 Grant said the money won by Louis will go toward funding more surgeries for women, and training doctors. To date, the foundation has helped roughly 20,000 women since the charity's start in 2000. 
 
 "Obstetric fistula is a fixable problem. That's why Fistula Foundation is my kind of charity: They do a simple thing that completely transforms a woman's life," Louis said in a released statement. "They pay for a fistula repair surgery and then these women's lives are set – they can get educated, get a job, do whatever they want. I like knowing that the support I give is really changing lives." 
 
 To learn more about obstetric fistulas and the Fistula Foundation, visit www.fistulafoundation.org. ||||| "You need to be comfortable to be funny and this is not my comfort zone," he said in a pre-show clip. "However, it might be funny for other people to watch me be very uncomfortable." 
 
 Louis was sure right on that! Although the Louie star admittedly "lucked out" and knew a lot about some of the categories, he also had a hilariously awkward moment of freezing up on the spot. 
 
 "Oh, boy," he said after being first to buzz in and called on to answer. "Why did I ring in?" 
 
 In the end, though, Louis picked up $50,000 that will be given to the Fistula Foundation, an organization providing care to women who incur this obstetric injury during childbirth and are left incontinent. ||||| Louis C.K. just won $50,000 for the Fistula Foundation on 'Jeopardy!'. But what is it? 
 
 Louis C.K. dominated Jeopardy!Power Players, beating out CNN's Kate Bolduan and The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart. With all of those bragging rights and Celebrity Jeopardy! jokes comes $50,000 for a charity of choice. And Louis's lucky recipient is the Fistula Foundation. 
 
 Louis feeling pretty confident in warm ups but @KateBolduan is going to be tough #JeopardyInDCpic.twitter.com/fY7ES8L8Lo — Cara Ann Kelly (@CaraReports) April 9, 2016 
 
 Wait, what? 
 
 That's right: The uber sharp comedian is the champion of a little-known foundation that is tackling a similarly unknown but major women's issue. So unknown that we had to ask Fistula Foundation CEO Kate Grant how the unlikely partnership came about, and what exactly $50,000 would help them do. 
 
 “The short answer: He was interested in a women’s issue, particularly one where women are underserved,” Grand told us. 
 
 And with Fistula, Louis hit the nail on the head. An obstetric fistula is a hole, most often caused by prolonged labor, between the vagina and rectum or bladder, that leaves patients incontinent. Meaning they lose control of urination or defecation or both. Pretty intense stuff. 
 
 “Fistula patients, they’re modern day lepers,” she says. “Too often in places, women don’t get Depend pads or even hot showers or multiple changes of clothes, and end up way too often they become outcasts in rural areas.” 
 
 The good news is the problem is fixable with surgery. 
 
 "There's no way to fix except for surgery, but 80 to 90 percent of that time it is completely successful." 
 
 Grant has traveled to many countries that have high numbers of women with fistulas, including those in Africa and Asia, which tend to be poor and have limited access to emergency care. The foundation has partnership agreements with hospitals in 23 countries, for which they raise money to sponsor surgeries. The organization is lean, built on Internet efficiency, she says, raising 8 million dollars last year, which equates to roughly 5,000 surgeries as well as surgeon training, hospital construction and more operating rooms. 
 
 answer: by just showing up. question: what is how did Louis C.K. prepare for #JeopardyInDC@Jeopardypic.twitter.com/dhC9tSUxp1 — Cara Ann Kelly (@CaraReports) April 9, 2016 
 
 "We work in places nobody visits. People haven’t seen the injuries here, it’s been eradicated," she says. 
 
 "Generally the biggest injury is beyond the physical, it’s the social. They're left by a husband and just shunned." 
 
 So how did one of the most famous comedians wind up talking about a problem that is, as Grant admits, hard for even her dad to discuss? 
 
 It was a friend of a friend thing that started the introduction, and Grant says he has been in touch ever since. And before he got off Twitter, he sent a tweet or two that crashed the foundation's website. 
 
 The counterintuitive partnership with a comic who has been accused of perpetuating rape jokes is not lost on Grant. 
 
 "It's not so subtly feminist, which I think is provocative and profound and wonderful. He’s such an unusual messenger, not Gloria Steinem," she says. 
 
 "You start talking about incontinence and vaginas and everyone gets uncomfortable. And the population is indigent. We're so grateful to Louis C.K., it takes a real mensch to get this done." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ToxCCU
– A little-known women's charity based in California had a welcome problem this week: The website of the Fistula Foundation crashed because of an influx of visitors, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The reason? Louis CK played on behalf of the group in a celebrity Jeopardy! match that aired Wednesday and ended up donating his $50,000 in winnings to it. The foundation helps women suffering from an obstetric fistula—"a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder that is caused by prolonged obstructed labor, leaving a woman incontinent," the website explains. Surgery can easily fix it, and it's no longer a problem in the US, but it remains a major issue for women in low-income countries. "They're modern-day lepers," the charity's CEO tells USA Today. The money will go toward training doctors and providing surgeries for more women, she says. Louis CK himself described the charity to host Alex Trebek "as a group of people who help women in poor countries who've been injured in childbirth, and it helps them get the medical attention that they need and get them back on their feet." To which Trebek responded, "That's not a well-known charity. Good for you." On the show, the comedian defeated Kate Bolduan of CNN and Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, notes E! Online. (Check out 23 hilarious celebrity game-show fails.)