Extra Life

Extra Life 2018

Today is Extra Life Game Day! We were very excited about our sixth year raising money to support St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. This year was extra special, because we created a Thrivent Action Team to help support our event.

We had a fun time playing this morning, and raised $225, which is about 1/3 of our yearly average (yes, I did the math, and we tend to raise about $700 a year on average).

And then things came to a screeching halt, because…I broke my ankle. I’m not even kidding. I spent the whole afternoon at the hospital, and have a referral to an orthopedist to have a cast put on next week.

So, today was not our best attempt at raising money with Extra Life to support the Children’s Miracle Network hospitals in St. Louis. But we’re not giving up…once things settle down, we’ll find some other opportunities to stream, so we can try to reach our goal of raising $1,000 before the end of the year!

Extra Life 2016

For the fourth year in a row, Ryan has participated in Extra Life’s “Game Day,” to raise money for the two Children’s Miracle Network hospitals in St. Louis. This means that he commits to playing video games for a 25 hour (because of the time change this weekend), marathon in November. He streams his games on Twitch, so anyone can watch, and takes donations, some of which had incentives for the donors. The great thing about Extra Life is that the hospitals get 100% of the donations to use at their discretion, for things like medical equipment, medication, even stuffed animals for children too weak or sick to get out of bed, but who could use a snuggly friend…it’s a great cause that we love supporting!

The game play began bright and early yesterday morning…Ryan always begins with Rock Band, and then other games follow.

This is a family affair. In addition to family multiplayer games, each child gets to pick a game to play with Ryan for an hour on Saturday afternoon. It’s fun to see what they each choose…there was Overcooked, Minecraft (chosen by two children!), Animal Crossing:Amiibo Festival, and Raving Rabbids 2.

He played lots of other games, as well…this year, there was a lot of Rock Band, and a whole lot of Lego Dimensions in the final hours of the stream. In the end, he raised $650, which was less than his goal, but still a great gift to our area children’s hospitals!

img_3496-1

This is a fun family tradition that we’ve all come to look forward to, and once we get caught up on the sleep we missed this weekend, we’ll be eagerly anticipating next year’s event!

Extra Life Marathon 2013

Click for the rest of the post, and find out how you can help support the children’s hospitals of St. Louis!

Extra Life is a community video game marathon that goes to benefit Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. Every year, interested gamers take donations as pledges and then take one for the team and play games for a full day in a test of endurance.

I thought about this. I have streaming capability. I have games. I have games I haven’t played or that I can play just for fun. I have friends and family I can rope in to helping with this and turning it into a really fun time.

There’s just one problem:

I’m late to the party!

This year’s Extra Life was held on November 2nd, and I missed it! (OK, to be fair, I didn’t have any idea it was going on until after the fact. Apparently I’m kind of sheltered.) From the looks of things, it has been a great success so far this year, and there’s no reason I can’t participate. I feel I’ve missed out on a chance—with your help—to make a difference.

Let’s do some last-minute Christmas shopping for St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center.

I’m going to kick off my Christmas vacation on December 20th at 8 a.m. Central time with the beginning of a 25-hour marathon of games with friends, family, and maybe a special guest or two. We’ll play games, chat a bit, and do it all to support kids who need quality medical care.

That sounds awesome!

Yeah, it does. Having a good time with friends and family, doing it for a great cause… it should be a pretty good time.

via Extra Life Marathon 2013 | Ryan Markel.