I'm participating in Extra Life this year! The tl;dr version is:
- Extra Life unites gamers to raise money that helps sick kids
- Tax-deductible donations made through me will benefit Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
- You can donate here
- I’ll be streaming my November 4th gaming marathon on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/rachelxstorm
- There will be solo games, games we can play together, book talks and recommendations
- Donate $15 and up and email me some info and I’ll give you personalized reading suggestions
- Donate $35 and up and you can pick a game I play during my marathon
- Follow me on Facebook or Twitter for updates and details
- See details below, and help spread the word!
For a few years now, I’ve wanted to participate in Extra Life, and I’ve decided 2017 is go time. If you’re not familiar, Extra Life benefits Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals by uniting gamers around the world to play games while raising money to help save sick children at the hospital of their choice. Every year they host a 24 hour fundraising and gaming marathon, and this year it falls on Saturday, November 4th.
I’ll be playing for Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, so your tax-deductible donations (which can be submitted here) will be helping local Chicagoland kids and families who really need it. Lurie is ranked as the top children’s hospital in Illinois, and the money raised through Extra Life will help support critical treatments, healthcare services, pediatric medical equipment and charitable care -- basically it will help them keep doing the amazing job they’ve been doing for Chicagoland families for 130+ years.
I never take on a charitable cause without having a personal reason -- and no, it’s not to have an excuse to play games for 24 hours. I could do that on my own for no reason at all. The gist is that for me, Extra Life is an opportunity to help local families and sick children by supporting Lurie’s efforts. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to have a sick child, but I absolutely know how expensive serious medical care can be and what a burden it is on top of the medical issue itself. If I can raise enough money to help even one family out a little bit, then it’s worth it.
So if you’re able to donate any amount of money to help the hospital, to help local families and their children, it would mean a lot. If you can’t, I know all too well how it is to be broke and unable to donate to a cause. You can still help by spreading the word wherever you can-- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, your blog, anything and everything helps.
I’m planning to stream my marathon on Twitch, and if you’re free November 4th you can even play games with me. I will be playing and streaming on my Xbox One -- if you play Xbox too, my gamertag is Rachel Storm. If you want to be sure to play together on November 4th, add me, send me a message, and make sure you’re following me on Facebook or Twitter for updates on what I’m playing when.
Even if you don’t play Xbox, you can still play along! Saturday evening I’ll be playing a trivia game called Trivia Murder Party from Jackbox Party Pack 3, and anyone can play along on their computer, tablet or mobile phone by going to jackbox.tv and entering a room code that I’ll release on my Twitch channel as well as on Twitter.
In between the games I stream, I’ll be doing book talks. They will all be relatively new, and I’ll try to cover a variety of genres and formats: thrillers, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, YA, comics, and non-fiction. I’m a librarian, I’m going to play to my strengths.
I will also send personalized book recommendations for anyone who donates $15 or more and emails me the last book they read that they loved and why, and how they want the next book they read to make them feel. Happy? Awed? Creeped out? Surprised? Inspired? Amused? Sad? Get creative.
Anyone who donates $35 or more will have an opportunity to pick a game for me to play. It can be any game I can play on Xbox One that I either already have or can borrow from a library. You can click here to see a list of games I own and click here and here to see games that I can borrow from a library. If you’re not sure about the game, feel free to email or message me before you donate and I’ll check for you. Pick something ridiculous, pick something scary, pick something hard that I’ll suck at, or pick something we can play together. But pick it by October 28th so I can get it in time.
So far, these are the games I am definitely playing that day:
Dragon Age Inquisition Multiplayer
Dead By Daylight
Trivial Pursuit
Rocket League
Minecraft
Layers of Fear
Trivia Murder Party
This could change as we get closer to the date, and I’ll eventually post a schedule on my Extra Life profile as well as here on my blog, so keep an eye out for that if there’s a game you’d really like to watch or play with me.
Phew! If you made it this far, thank you! Now let’s get going and help improve these kids’ lives!
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