In 2013, a rag-tag group of gamers got together to raise money for a local children’s hospital. How did they decide they would accomplish such a feat? TWENTY FIVE HOURS OF GAMING!
Extra Life is an annual event that works alongside hospitals in the Children’s Miracle Network to provide long term care for kids with chronic illness. When it started, it was focused on video games and late night LAN parties. These days – gamers of all stripes come together to help kids by playing the games that they love. Naturally, we answered the minute we we heard that rallying cry. 
In our first event, a team of eight played board and card games for 25 straight hours and was able to raise over $1300 for the Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. Based on an email the hospital sent out to the teams, that money just about covered the complete cost of one child staying in the facility for treatment … for two days. But there are a lot of kids that are in that hospital – many whose stay in the hospital is much longer than two days. While that may seem discouraging, we refuse to give up. We see it as a reminder that there’s more work to do. We took it as a challenge.
The 2014 Extra Life event is scheduled to happen on OCTOBER 25th. This means that by the time Halloween rolls around, we’ll be able to present a huge pile of treats to these kids. This year’s goal is to raise over $1500 for the hospital. We’ll have 24 hours of open gaming where people can enjoy the games in the InnRoads traveling library, as well as any brought by our team. We are confident that we will not only meet this goal – but crush it beneath our dice!
So how can you be a part of this event? There are THREE WAYS to partner with us.
1.) Join the team!
Click on this link to go to the InnRoads Regulars team page. Click “Join This Team” and sign up. It’s free to join and you can start raising money for the kids within minutes. All donations are 100% tax deductible and all transactions are done directly through the site to the Children’s Miracle Network, so your money is safe. Again – this year, the InnRoads Regulars team will be playing in support of Children’s Specialized Hospital of New Brunswick, New Jersey.
If you find yourself living in a part of the world that isn’t central New Jersey and wish to be part of the team, SIGN UP ANYWAY. All donations are handled through the Extra Life site, so you can still be a part of the team even if you’re playing games with your friends in your area. These kids don’t care if you are here or not. Children’s Specialized will still be able to get the money it needs.
2) Create a team!
While we’d love people to join up with the Regulars – there may be a local children’s hospital by you that needs your support just as much as Children’s Specialized. If that’s the case, go to the Extra Life site and create your own team. Once you’ve done that, be sure to send your team name and a link to your team’s donation page to contact@innroadsministries.com. We’ll be collecting links to any team that fans of the site have created to make sure that every player finds a table and we can help as many sick kids as possible are supported.
I got a medal for my part of our teams fund raising. You can get one too!
3) Support the team!
Not a gamer? Does the idea of staying conscious for 24 hours exhaust and terrify you? You can still be an important part of this event by sponsoring our players. Donations can be handled at our team page by selecting a team member from the roster and clicking the donate button.
With your help, we’ll be able to meet that $1500 team goal.
I will continue to update this post with links, news, events, and more as we get closer to the event. Please continue to pray and tell people about the event so that we can help kids who don’t get to leave the hospital have the best life that they can.