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Child's Play 2005 Launch
It's that time of year again! Child's Play 2005 is underway. Child's Play is a charity run every year by Penny Arcade, the well-known online gaming comic created by Gabe and Tycho. Child's Play is your chance to give to the proto-geeks of the world who not only might not have the chance to play games otherwise, but find themselves sick in a hospital during the Holiday season. Child's Play gives money, games, and toys to children's hospitals in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.. Gabe's kickoff post was put up yesterday on the site. The Child's Play site itself is chok full of information, including a F.A.Q., letters from former patients who have been touched by games in hospice, and an order form for tickets to the second annual Child's Play charity dinner. This last is a swanky shindig with a silent auction, at which you can bid on one-of-a-kind opportunities like a tour of Bungie's studios or the chance to be in a Penny Arcade comic. Most important, though, are the links on the front page of the site to the various Amazon.com wishlists. There, you can purchase a book, game, or toy to have sent to a deserving kid at one of the participating hospitals. These folks are our folks, and if you have anything to give this is the place to do it. Thanks.
Now to determine how much money to donate to it...
As a side note, anyone know anything about get well gamers? They seem to be asking for non-monitary donations, but as I recall, last year Gabe said they weren't allowed to give already used stuff (I could be wrong on this).
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Do they have an "open books" policy regarding what percentage of donations actually go to recipients?
A "for the kids" charity organization keeps blitzing my church with videos, and when I researched them I found that they give out less than 50% of their take!
No need, Thompson has just bailed the case!
I was badly burned as child and was helped greatly by the Shriner's, Easter Seals, and St Jude's. This was all treament that parents would have been unable to afford on their own. While I find it touching that you want to give games to kiddies, I think it would be far more beneficial to make donations to pay for actual treatment. The games, toys, etc. are not a life and limb kind of thing. In many cases, the treatment is. I know that it certainly was for me. The doctors at our local hospital wanted to amputate my left hand and part of my arm because I was so severely burned. Yet I sit here, today, typing with both hands thanks to the help we got from people who specalize in treating children with injuries like mine.
I'd also like to remind everyone to give blood at this time year. It's something that many of the children need as they undergo surgery and its something that's normally in very short supply this time of year.
Probably not a popular sentiment and I'll probably be modded as a Troll.
2 cents,
Queen B.
HDGary secures my bank
When the PA guys did the first Child's Play, it was almost a spur of the moment kind of thing in response to a newspaper column written about violent video games. They had absolutely no idea what they were getting into, and were utterly shocked when they hit $10,000. They finished that first year with over $110,000. This isn't an organized charity organization, this is two guys frontlining an army of gamers and geeks for a good cause. As another reply to your comment says, just give them time. :)
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
I can remember visiting my grandmother in the hospital a year or so back, and while waiting for her to wake up I took a walk around the hospital and found a group of kids sitting in a recreation room all playing games and having a great time. It's a phenomenal way to keep these kids happy while going through tough times.
Anyone want to go in half with me for a PS2?
And you know? You can only care so much, fix so much. You can't take the burden of the whole world on your shoulders. Nor can you, or should you, ignore a problem somewhere, just because there's a worse problem somewhere else. For example we should not stop giving food to soup kitchens in America until all the kids in Africa are fed first.
Also, there's a matter of making sure that the donations get to the intended recipiants. In a stable, first-world nation, that's pretty easy. I'd venture to say 99.9% of all Child's Play gifts go where they are supposed to, and the small fraction of a percent that don't are mistakes, not thefts. In Africa? Well try arranging that. That's always been a massive problem with aid over there. You drop off tons of food, only to have it seized by a local milita, and this is when the UN and governments do it and they can actually back their position up with guns, if they so choose. PA, well thy'd send shit there and just hope it got where it was supposed to.
There's also the matter of trying to do things others aren't. There already is aid going to Africa, lots of it. It's not enough, but as I said it's also due to reasons of it not getting where it's supposed to. But the point is, if you want to give aid to Africa, there are ways to do it. However this market, toys for hospitalised kids in teh states, seemed to be totally neglected. So they started it up. Rather than try to duplicate the effort of others, they started something new.
...but it ought to be said: anonymous charity doesn't set an example, and greater overall good is achieved by encouraging others to contribute. Do you really think humility is more important than helping more children? Is helping people wrong if you benefit as well?
... who I suppose are doing all their charitable work on the down-low (or on the wrong end of a community service sentence).
Now I'm not intimately familiar with Gabe and Tycho's financial situations, but this I do know: they're comfortable enough to throw down $10,000 to embarrass Jack Thompson. That may have been all their givin'-away money for the year, but let's assume it isn't, and in fact, they have $100,000 squirreled away to donate anonymously. Good deal for those kids, huh?
Except during their first year, Child's Play pulled over $110,000 and it was hardly organized at that point. I'm having trouble coming up with a concrete total for their second year, but anybody who follows the strip/newsposts can confirm they did a hell of a lot better than the first run, and they generated a lot more money than they could have donated on their own. Kobe Bryant might be able to personally compete with their totals, but comic strip artists don't make quite as much money as so-called sports heroes
Reading through some of the letters and seeing the positive responses like this one put me in the holiday's mood. I just ordered a handful of items through the website. I'm usually a stingy bastard too, but that honestly did feel pretty good.
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