Hello! It's Mike here & I'm back to take over Alisa's blog...for good reasons, I assure you!
I'm going to do it again. I knew even before I finished last time that I was going to do it again & I've been looking forward to ever since. That's right, on November 4th I'll be completing a 24-hour marathon gaming session for Extra Life and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.
Extra Life is a charity group that organizes gamers of all flavors to raise money for their local Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Extra Lifers have raised over $30 million dollars since its inception in 2008 & last year alone raised over $9 million. People raise money all throughout the year, but the major event is the 24-hour gaming marathon which is exactly what it sounds like...stay awake for 24 straight hours to play games. It can be card games, board games, video games...whatever the participant wants to do. I'll once again be playing video games. Mostly because it's fun, but also because I can live stream the whole thing over on my Twitch channel so awesome people like you can hang out with me & anyone else who wanders into chat.
Children's Miracle Network hospitals provide life-saving care for kids regardless of financial situation. Things like diabetes, cancer, newborn & fetal care are all treatments that can be done at this network of hospitals. And this, ultimately, is why I participate in Extra Life. No child should have their life cut short, and no parent should have to lose their child to a curable disease simply because they lacked the funds to pay for the care.
Last year was the first time I actively participated in Extra Life even though I had known about it for a few years. It was quite an experience. It sounds easy! Who doesn't want to sit around and play games to help kids? And, to be honest, it really wasn't too bad...until around hour 18. That would have been right around 4am. For much of the previous day I had people stopping into the Twitch chat to hang out and keep me company, but at 4am all of the smart people are sleeping & had been for quite a while.
Luckily I had prepared really well for the event. My first instinct was to just eat pizza & drink beer all day. Again, that sounds pretty great in theory, but would have been a disaster in practice. Alisa was a huge help in preparing healthy meals and snacks to keep me going. Just knowing that there were delicious turkey wraps waiting in the fridge really helped. And, yes, I did have some coffee...probably around that 4am time I mentioned earlier. This is what I looked like a little over 20 hours into the marathon. In my head I thought I was doing a big exaggerated goofy smile, but apparently not?
So, I really hope that you will consider donating to this amazing cause. If you aren't financially able to make a donation, I totally understand. In either case, I'd really appreciate it if you could share my donation page on your social media sites with your friends and family.
Oh yeah! I'm going to give away some prizes this year! For every $15 you donate you'll get 1 entry into the prize drawing...$45 gets you 3 entries, etc. You could win fabulous things like a dozen chocolate chip cookies baked by ME, an Extra Life phone case, Steam codes for games AND, the thing that most of you reading this will want, I'll have TWO $25 gift certificates from Firefly Fibers!!!
AND, if we hit the $1,000 goal in time before November 4th I'll dye my hair in time for the stream to match this years Extra Life shirt (Black, Blue, Pink, or Green). If you donate any amount you'll get to vote on the color! Make sure to include your email address when you donate so I can send you the link to the poll.
I'm really excited for November 4th!
P.S. - 42 is my age. :)