A Wrinkle in Silver

A Little Background

As some of you may know, I participate in a fundraiser called Extra Life. We play games to help raise money for kids in the Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. See, there are going to be around 10 million kids that will enter a CMN hospital this year. They may enter for something like a fever, a broken arm, a serious accident, or a disease that can just wreck childhood.

Each time I have raised money, it has been for Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, WA. They are but 1 of 170 facilities in the United States and Canada that are a part of CMN system. Thus far, since I have started, I have raised $13,183.00 which is an astounding amount for one person to do. $10k of that came from my participation in Extra Life United, an annual conference that takes place in Orlando, Florida. See the videos at the end of this post to see that experience.

There is an annual 24 hour marathon event that takes place the first Saturday of November which is the hallmark of Extra Life. This is the time where a lot of Extra Lifers will do their fundraising. I have done this for the first 3 years. But for this year, I’m going all out. Going to ELU was one of the first step to go bigger. I’m now doing monthly goals between now and November.

What can you do to help?

There are several ways you can help. First and foremost is making a financial donation. And you can do that by clicking through below:

Any amount can help out! I like to say $5 is a good amount as that’s about the same as for a medium specialty coffee at your favorite coffee place. There is also an option to donate some amount of money per month, ala Patreon.

If a donation isn’t viable at the moment, go ahead and just share this post or the page to all you know. Getting the word out about what Extra Life is and how they are helping sick and injured kids is great! Extra Life might be known within gamer circles, but it may not be beyond those circles.

Another way to help is to join Extra Life yourself to bring in your own donations from your friends, family, co-workers, fellow students, and colleagues. Last year, a vast majority of my $2500 fundraising came from co-workers. They are a great bunch of people. If you sign up, you can also join my team, Loading Gamers Now. We’re a small group at the moment but will get bigger. Hit up Loading Gamers Now if you are interested.

And lastly, I do a weekly stream on Twitch.tv. I’m an affiliate which means I can get subscriptions and bits. I have pledged that 100% of the money I get from Twitch would be donated to Extra Life. If you happen to have Amazon Prime, you have the ability to subscribe to a single Twitch channel with no money out of your pocket. Here’s a guide that can help you set that up. Though if you want to subscribe anyway or cheer, that’s pretty damn cool, too!

Also on Twitch, give me a follow and hang out with me while I stream. That will also help, too.

Monthly Goals

I had set the first goal in April to be $25 as I started later in the month. That was crushed. For May, I’m upping it to $100. Each goal, I’m doing something such as the Hot Sauce Karaoke for this month. What song will it be? “All Star” because why not? “All Star” seems to have gotten a bad rap and not well liked but after slurping on some hot sauce, I’m sure it will be a good song again.

Again, I can’t do it without your help. That is:

• Donate
• Share
• Join
• Subscribe

Do one, do them all! Whatever you do, it will help. I appreciate it and the kids and their families at Seattle Children’s appreciate it, too.

Extra Life United