Monday, September 19, 2016

One Dollar At A Time


We’re past the halfway point now. At least in terms of something called #100DaysOfGaming. This event, or challenge if you will, was started back in 2014 by an Extra Life participant who goes by the handle of HeroByClicking (he is also our current Extra Life Stream Team Leader!). He did as a way to help promote what Extra Life does, as well as gear himself up for the annual marathon. The concept was that he would play one game for at least one hour for 100 consecutive days, ending on the day the marathon begins. Hero further challenged himself to play a different game for each of those days – no repeats. That may sound like a lot, but nowadays, with things like Steam and Origin (services that allow you to buy games directly from the Internet), it’s not as tough (or expensive) as it was even a decade ago to accumulate several hundred games in one’s library.

I am nowhere near that, however. I still cling to the old school ways of the brick and mortar way of shopping and purchasing. Naturally, things like my Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) games don’t usually have that option any more, but comparatively speaking, my 5-shelf bookcase is a rather modest collection of games over the last 30-odd years. Unfortunately, some of them are relegated to the dust collector category since the computers I can play them on have long since ceased to function. One of these days though, I keep telling myself, I’ll find the time to cobble parts together and get at least one of the ancient beasts moving again. For now, I will just have to satisfy myself with keeping a couple of the not so ancient PCs running (my old Windows 98 HP Pavilion for instance), and see what I can jury rig to run in a Virtual Machine (in essence, a digitized computer that runs on a real, physical computer). I also can’t forget about all those board games we have sitting on another shelf as well. Thanks to my little experiment on Day 52 (September 17th, 2016), I can stream some non-digital gaming goodness.

So, with this being Day 54 (and International Talk like a Pirate Day – Avast thee here, me hearties!), we have only 46 days left to go before this year’s 24 hour marathon – 25 if you include the hour we fall back on Sunday, November 6th this year. Just a month and a half left, and it will be here before we know it. This summer and the first 54 days have just seemed to fly by. My initial eight week stint with the official Extra Life Stream Team ended a few weeks ago, but fortunately, members have the option to keep actively streaming as long as there are time slots available, so I look forward to my weekly romps on the official Extra Life channel, chatting away with people and playing some games that I haven’t been able to get to for a long time. If anyone would like to join me, just watch the Extra Life Channel on Sundays from 9-11 PM Easten Time.

In my last two blog posts about Extra Life, I talked a little bit about my motivations for participating in the charity for the last four years. Because of that, and because of my determination to make sure Extra Life is as successful as it can be, I have challenged myself to become more involved, hence my participation on the Stream Team and inclusion in the 100 Days of Gaming challenge. To date, Extra Life has added over $22 million to the Children’s Miracle Network’s collection total over the last eight years. That may seem like a lot, but compared to the over $100 million spent on political advertising for this year’s election campaigns, and the $5 billion raised over all by CMN since it started in 1983, that’s just a drop in the bucket. Surely, if so many millions can be raised to fund what pretty much amounts to as asinine television commercials, then we can certainly do better for something like Extra Life that does some genuine good in this world and, at the end of the day, can help children from dying. Surely that’s worthy enough for a few more bucks to head our way.

That’s why I have decided to start the #1DollarAtATime initiative. I sort of hijacked the hashtag that has been around on Twitter for a while now, but it’s all for a good cause. Like I mentioned, CMN has raised over $5 billion to date, and most have that has been through simple $1 donations – either via the traditional CMN balloons, or through things like Dairy Queen’s Miracle Treat Day. Even Sam’s Club gets in on the action, as my local Club had their fundraising effort a couple weeks ago – selling candy bars and snacks for $1 a piece. In year’s past they have raised over $10,000 for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia that way. So even something as little as a single Dollar Bill can add up and go a long way.

I thought to myself, “What can we, at Extra Life, do to try to raise more money?”

The answer kind of presented itself as I was streaming a gameplay session for #100Days. At the end of the day, those of us Extra Lifers who stream or create YouTube videos for people to watch are doing it as an attempt at creating a piece of entertainment, not unlike a TV show or a movie. Others things have come to my mind, like giving away prizes for people donating certain amounts, or even original artwork made by Erin and Abby. But in the end, these things cost money and time, and that is something I have in short supply right now. Truth be told, I would rather use any extra money I have to donate right back to another Extra Life participant, which is what I have been doing as part of my #1DollarAtATime initiative. Perhaps next year, I can throw in some of that artwork for donations, but for this year, it will just have to be that one hour of entertainment I am trying to provide through my gaming videos.

So I am hoping, that with all my Extra Life videos thus far, and with the ones to come, people will find them at least mildly entertaining enough to be worth just a simple $1 donation. Heck, it’s cheaper than an hour at the movies at any rate, and certainly cheaper than a cup of Starbucks brew. If I can just get one person to pick one #100Days video to make that $1 donation, then I could potentially raise $100 for CHOP just through that. Of course, I plan on walking the walk and not just talking the talk. I have committed to donate $1 a day to each of my fellow Stream Team members, past and present, for the remainder of the Extra Life campaign. That should net Extra Life and CMN another $30-$35. Not too shabby, I think, and when I combine that with my $5 donations to my Judgement Gaming teammates (the team of other Extra Life participants I have joined up with) to bring that total to over $50. And then there’s the $15 donation I made when I signed up to be a Platinum Participant this year.

One Dollar may not seem like a lot on its own. But as we can see, it can all add up when people come together for a good cause. That’s why I participate, but it takes more than just us Extra Lifers to help these Hospitals get the funds they need. It takes people willing to give that money for that cause. That’s why I also donate. God forbid that either of my children will have to go through what many of these thousands of other kids have to go through on a daily basis. I am just glad I can do my small part here to help. I hope everyone else reading this will feel the same way.

It just takes $1 at a time to make a difference in a life.

No comments:

Post a Comment