Well fellow gamers, the long awaited day has finally arrived! Yesterday at Seattle Children’s Hospital, we hosted our first ribbon cutting ceremony for the next generation GO Karts!
In addition to christening the new GO Karts, this week also held special weight in our hearts. Coincidentally, Gamers Outreach turned 10 years old this past Monday. It was this week in 2007 when our high school Halo tournament was canceled, leading to the start of our organization. What better way to celebrate than by delivering an equivalent number of new GO Karts?
Talk about serendipity, right?
For those who’ve been following our blog posts, for the past year, we’ve been working to construct a new version of our portable gaming kiosks – affectionately known as GO Karts. Now that the process is complete, we’re in a position to build way more GO Karts, way more efficiently – which means way more hospitalized kids will have access to recreation!
Driven by funds raised at last year’s Gamers for Giving, and donations throughout 2016, we’ve already been able to build more GO Karts than have been constructed in the entire program’s existence. Now we’re working to deliver this new batch to hospitals across the country – and yesterday we dropped our largest donation to-date at Seattle Children’s Hospital!
This particular delivery was a true community effort, pioneered by Aaron Greenberg and Team Xbox, with support from Infiniscene and the CREAG Foundation, along with streamers such as Mr_Monopoli, CrReam, Darkness429, and Stallion83. Through their efforts – 10 next generation GO Karts now exist within Seattle Children’s Hospital!
“I have the pleasure of working with patients and their families in the ICU and often use the GO Kart system,“ said Jennifer Baker, child life specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “The GO Karts have been a valuable resource in providing entertainment, distraction and normalization for these patients. It is an honor to be receiving such a generous gift knowing how much joy these bring our patients at Seattle Children’s.”
Aaron’s enthusiasm has been inspiring – both for our staff, and our partners. As lifelong gamers, it’s been humbling to receive such an outpouring of support from Team Xbox. We’re incredibly grateful to know this gift will be of such value to patients and staff at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
This contribution wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the collective gaming community. Aaron’s fundraising efforts were amplified by the team from Infiniscene, who matched more than $12,000 in donations to bring these GO Karts into existence.
“It’s amazing to see this project come to life,” said Gamers Outreach founder Zach Wigal. “We’re a team of passionate gamers, and we’re thankful to support patients and their families within hospitals. To do so through a medium we love is incredibly special. ”
With this delivery, Seattle Children’s Hospital has the most GO Karts of any healthcare facility we support – for now ;).
Our deepest thanks to everyone who supported Aaron’s campaign, to Infiniscene for generously matching donations, and to our community – for being with us these past 10 years as our cause has grown! You’ve all made an incredible difference in the lives of hospitalized children across the country! Here’s to the next 10. Let’s help others level up!
We’ll see you at the next one.