I’ve been kicking around GW-EN and Gamers Giving Back for several years now and my time with them goes back well into the days of Guild Wars I. My first contact with them was through another friend of mine and he introduced me to their Pink Day fund raiser. I thought it was pretty wild to see a bunch of gamers throw an in-game party for the community and also be raising money for a real life charity. They were giving away items in-game and even had some great prizes outside of the game for the real life donations. That was also the first time I had heard Malibu Barbie say “Together we can help make a difference, one gamer at a time”. You wouldn’t think that a single gamer or gamers in general would be able to make a difference but the folks at Gamers Giving Back and those who work with the Gaming World Entertainment Network radio stream have done just that.
The one gamer at a time motto has been their theme since they started and I’ve watched them accomplish some pretty amazing things. Their Pink Day in LA and M.S. Toga Party events has raised thousands for the Canadian Cancer Society and the M.S. Society of Canada. For myself this group has provided me with an additional outlet to do some real life good while doing something that I enjoy such as playing Guild Wars. They also hit close to home with their events in support of cancer since my mother is a seventeen year breast cancer survivor. I’ve also introduced a few friends to this group who tune in to their radio stream at GW-EN regularly now and help me in contributing to these folks both in and out of our virtual reality. Maybe one gamer can make a difference by just informing a friend and it’s hard to say what that might inspire. My own guild in-game is a very small group of real life friends and over the years helping GW-EN and Gamers Giving Back we’re doing a little something of our own and these folks were an inspiration in getting it all started.
One thing I’ve discovered in working with everyone is that this group is so diverse that my own typical thinking of what a gamer was changed. Yeah as gamers we literally come from all walks of life. Our ages, occupations, and interests vary as much as the colors in a box of skittles. Since I’m a disabled veteran I usually spend a lot of time in front of the computer and it’s given me plenty of time to do things others can’t. I’m an avid archer myself and aside from spending a lot of time gaming and on-line I do enjoy getting outdoors and competing in archery tournaments here in the state and at the national level. Looking at what GW-EN and Gamers Giving Back have done I set a goal this year to do my own fund raiser and I’ve included my favorite hobby of archery in the process. I knew this little endeavor would require some time, I had plenty of that, but I really had no idea exactly how much work this would actually require and what it would take to put this all together. I started my planning for this event back in January at our first club meeting and the work has not stopped since.
If you’ve never actually appreciated the time and effort involved in such an undertaking I can assure you that doing anything like this is going to require more than just a little effort. The entire idea was to host a benefit shoot at our archery club and donate the money to our local hospital to provide free mammograms for women and assist in paying bills for cancer treatment for women with no insurance. Everything that we raised would stay here in our local community and not just a portion of it but 100% of what we raise would go toward fighting cancer. I had helped host, set-up and run our clubs shoots before so this would be easy. It took several meetings with the club’s board members to iron out some details for the shoot. It took several more weeks with meetings at the local hospital to set things up and meeting with their board of directors. In the end I got approval for the club to host the shoot and the hospital even has our event posted on their community event calendar as well as getting attention on several Face Book pages. It was a pretty big deal for them to include the shoot on their site and it was worth the effort in talking to and meeting the right people to make it all happen. If you’re interested in such a thing or are an archer here in the grand old state of Michigan come on out and meet the teller of the most horrible Guild Wars 2 jokes.
Caro Community Hospital Local Events.
The shoot will be in September and I’ve already begun plans on next year’s event as I’ve had so much feedback and response to this it’s actually be overwhelming. I have several Archery companies who have donated prizes and next year there is the possibility of getting just more than the archers involved in donating to the cancer fund the club is setting up. I had no idea when I started this project that it might balloon into something really big. It has definitely been a meaningful experience for me and the shoot hasn’t even happened yet. Just managing to put this all together is a reward in and of itself with all the meetings, emails, phone calls and running around that I had to do. Imagine this was put together by an individual who had been sitting at home playing video games and said “Hey, I bet I could do something like that”. The time spent with the people of GW-EN and seeing what they did was an inspiration to me and I’ve gathered a few others along the way to help with this project. You just never know what your words or deeds will inspire while you’re gaming on-line. Perhaps Malibu Barbie was on to something when she coined the phrase “Together we can help make a difference, one gamer at a time”.
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