At this year’s Gamers for Giving, we’re raising $200,000 to help build GO Karts for kids in hospitals. Please consider supporting our efforts by making a donation here.
Gamers Outreach is a charity that provides recreation to children in hospitals through the power of video games and the gaming community. As an organization, our intent is to help inspire and heal patients through interactive play. For nearly a decade, we’ve been visiting healthcare facilities across the U.S., working to ensure games and technology are accessible for patients, and manageable for healthcare professionals.
Hospitalization can often be a lonely, isolating, and scary experience – especially for young people. We’ve seen it firsthand, and we’re doing everything we can to ease those burdens.
Photo by Tim Seppala, Engadget
We’ve become most known for constructing these things called “GO Karts” (Gamers Outreach Karts). GO Karts are portable, medical-grade video game kiosks deployed inside hospitals. Each cart is equipped with a gaming console, monitor, and assortment of games. The kiosks are mobile and fully secure, enabling medical staff to easily provide children with access to bedside activities.
Last year, we set a $100,000 fundraising goal in an effort to construct more GO Kart for hospitals nationwide. We ended up nearly doubling our intended goal, and raised more than $172,000.
Due to the success of the event, we decided to make a few investments that helped us scale the GO Kart initiative. As we’ve documented in multiple blog posts throughout the past year, we’ve been able to improve the manufacturing process, and as a by-product, build a whole bunch of new GO Karts, way more efficiently. In our first batch (currently being rolled out to hospitals) we’re delivering as many GO Karts as we’ve built in the entire program’s existence. This was all made possible with the help of you – our fellow gamers.
Now – we’re ready to go full throttle. Hospitals are actively seeking durable, reliable tools to easily manage interactive technology, and GO Karts are a proven solution for supporting patients.
Within a year, our hope is to construct at least 1 GO Kart for every U.S. children’s hospital. This can only be done with the support of the gaming community, and we’re kicking it off at Gamers for Giving 2017.
At this year’s event, we’re chasing down a $200,000 fundraising goal. This will be the largest amount we’ve ever raised in a single weekend, and will help give us the boost we need in 2017 to move forward on building our second batch of next-gen GO Karts for an array of hospitals that we’ve yet to support.
Here’s how you can get involved:
- Fundraise: We recently built our own fundraising platform which allows gamers to stream in support of Gamers Outreach programs! You can start a general fundraiser, or even rally your community to construct GO Karts for a hospital of your preference. Not a streamer? No sweat! You can still use the platform to reach out to friends, family, or colleagues in support of the big weekend’s goal! Create your first fundraising campaign here. Need artwork for your stream? Download our logo and Twitch banners here.
- Donate: Any amount helps! Donations can be made on the front page of the Gamers for Giving website, or by visiting www.GamersOutreach.org/donate.
- Watch: Gamers Outreach will be streamed live all weekend on our Twitch channel, and with help from a variety of streamers in the gaming community. Be sure to check out our Stream page for all the details!
- Spread the Word: Unable to make a donation, but still want to be involved? Help spread Gamers for Giving hype on social media! You can use the hashtag #GFG2017 to help promote this year’s event and encourage friends to get involved.
Whether you’re streaming from home, or joining us at the EMU Convocation Center, we look forward to having you be a part of this year’s efforts! We’ll see you on April 1st & 2nd!