If given a choice, Dave Aceto would rather stay indoors for 24 hours, for a good cause, than run a road race.
“I think everybody wants to participate in charity events, but I won’t be running a marathon anytime soon,” said Aceto, an owner of Arcadia National Bar in Portland. “A gaming marathon is more my speed.”
EXTRA LIFE
Extra Life is a national group that helps organize gaming fundraisers for children’s hospitals. On Saturday, Extra Life gaming events in Southern Maine will benefit the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland. People playing games at home, video or otherwise, can raise money by asking people to sponsor them and registering at Extra-Life.org. Or people can join various Extra Life events and game marathons organized around southern Maine, including these:
Arcadia National Bar, 24 Preble St., Portland, 9 a.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday, $30 donation/admission fee, includes food. Facebook.com/ArcadiaNationalBar
Walker Memorial Library, 800 Main St., Westbrook, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. Walker.lib.me.us
Weekend Anime’s Extra Life Maine, American Legion Hall, 300 Conant St., Westbrook, 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday, $20 donation to play. Weekendanime.com/extralife/
That’s why Aceto is excited for the Extra Life gaming fundraiser Saturday, aimed at raising money for the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland. People can play video games, card games or any other kind of game, either at their homes or at various marathon locations set up around Greater Portland. Money will be raised by admission donations at some of the marathon events and by gamers getting people to sponsor them for their efforts at Extra-Life.org.
Extra Life is part of a national trend of tapping the huge and cohesive gaming community for their fundraising abilities. More than 150 million Americans play video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association, and the video game industry generated more than $21 billion in revenue in 2014. Games have even been developed as fundraising and educational engines, including Freerice, an online game where players earn grains of rice to be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme.
Extra Life, a fundraising program that raises money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, was started in 2008 with the help of the gaming community. Founder Jeromy Adams, an avid gamer, reached out to people on gaming websites to see if they’d donate some video games to a young friend of his who was being treated for leukemia in a Texas hospital. They did, in droves. After his friend died, he reached out to gamers again to see if they were interested in a gaming marathon to raise money in her memory.
Since then, Extra Life has raised more than $14 million, for 170 hospitals all over the country.
“I believe that gamers are actually some of the best harbingers of social good. They possess some of the largest personal networks and are incredibly adept at finding ways to tell the story (of Extra Life’s mission),” said Adams, the managing director of Extra Life. “Gone are the days of the gamer stereotype of being a pale young man in mom and dad’s basement. We are the moms and dads now. We own our own basements.”
Extra Life is organized so that gamers raise money for their local hospitals, with the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital being the recipient of Extra Life funds raised by Southern Maine gamers. More than $40,000 has been raised for the hospital since 2012, through Extra Life events.
“It’s a way to engage game lovers to do what they love, while raising money for the hospital,” said Kate Richardson, development manager for Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital.
At Aceto’s bar, people will pay $30 for a marathon gaming session scheduled to last from 9 a.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday. People can play on the bar’s pinball machines, or board games, or at video consoles. There will be food brought in, so the gamers can play on a full stomach.
The Westbrook store Weekend Anime & Games will host another marathon event at the American Legion Hall on Conant Street in Westbrook. The event will run from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday, and admission is a $20 donation. The event will include competitive video gaming tournaments, said Julie York, a co-owner of Weekend Anime & Games.
Weekend Anime helps organize the Extra Life event in Southern Maine, and York says she’s seen the number of participants grow each year.
“I think it’s people with geeky hobbies trying to give back in some way,” said York.
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