Spoiler Alert!
*drops pin*
We’ve officially made it to the land down under!
You read that correctly. We’re excited to share big news that we’ve delivered our first GO Karts for the South Pacific region! We’re officially in Melbourne, Australia!
The team at Gamers Outreach has been blown away by the chain of events that made these karts possible. We had to share the journey with you:
It all started back in October when LazarBeam, a YouTube content creator, uploaded a video titled “Whatever You Build… I WILL BUY.”
One of the featured requests? A selfless (and impressive) build from Awedam, a Fortnite World Cup Creator. Awedam exercised his creative talent to reconstruct Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as a Fortnite map.
Nestled inside the hospital was a special ask to LazarBeam: please build GO Karts for families receiving care.
LazarBeam donated two.
GO Karts (Gamers Outreach Karts) are portable video game kiosks we construct for hospitals. They’re intended to help make play more accessible. Each unit is equipped with video games, helping provide entertainment to patients who may be stuck in bed for long periods of time.
Ok – so how did this land us in Australia?
*Fast forwards to December 2020*
After racking up more than 14 million views, LazarBeam’s video sparked a sense of inspiration on the other side of the world.
We received a letter from Oscar Chalmers, an 11-year-old Melbourne native.
“To LazarBeam,” he wrote.
“I’ve been watching your videos for 4 years now… As you may recall, you made a YouTube video called ‘Whatever You Build…I WILL BUY.’ In the video, I saw you give away two GO Karts to [Children’s Hospital Los Angeles]. I thought the machines were really great so I told my parents about them and we did some research. We contacted Gamers Outreach and decided to purchase two GO Karts for Monash Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.”
Monash Children’s Hospital was a familiar place for the Chalmers family, as Oscar’s twin brothers had complications at birth.
Thankfully the Chalmers family made it through with the assistance of staff at Monash, and Oscar’s twin brothers are now happy, healthy 14-year-olds.
Ending his letter, Oscar mentioned how excited the hospital was for the donation of the two GO Karts.
The only remaining piece? Getting GO Karts to the other side of the world! Thankfully for us it just so happens Oscar’s father, Chris, works in logistics. As part of the family’s donation, they offered to ship the karts overseas!
*Big shoutout to Tomax Logistics for the assistance!*
Thanks to this collective support, we can now say a new pin has been added to the impact map, and play sessions are literally happening across the world as we type!
We are so grateful for Oscar and the Chalmers family. All of us at Gamers Outreach are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with our community of supporters. International availability of our programs is a request we receive regularly, and it’s something our team is working towards. We believe access to play should have no boundaries, and we’re thankful for donors like the Chalmers family who are helping us take the first steps towards making that a reality!
Game on, everyone!