by Aneeka Kalia
On Saturday, October 20, fourteen members of the Connecticut College Gaming Club took part in a nation-wide charity event called Extra Life, in which organizations and groups participate in a gaming marathon for twenty-four hours in order to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
Extra Life was founded in 2008 by the Sarcastic Gamer Community in honor of Victoria Enmon; a little girl who lost her life in January 2008 to acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Now, in her memory, people across the country gather sponsors and pledge to play games of all sorts for a total of twenty-four hours. Extra Life started at 8 AM on October 20 and officially ended twenty-four hours later.
The goal of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals is provide children with long-term care for serious illnesses, like cancer, regardless of whether or not their parents can afford to pay for it. To do this, these hospitals depend on donations from events such as Extra-Life. There are Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals all over the country in order to help as many local kids as possible. The Gaming Club exceeded their nominal goal this year, and raised $2,881.01 for the Hartford Children’s Hospital.
During Extra Life, games are not restricted to video games on consoles. Participants can play board games, games of tag, sports, etc.
The members of the CC Gaming Club that participated in Extra Life started off the event with a Nerf battle in the arboretum on Saturday morning, and ended it with a croquet match on Tempel Green on Sunday morning. Throughout the course of the day, students played board games like Connect Four in the Lambdin game room and video games in the Smith Common Room. Apples to Apples was popular among those participating in Extra Life, but even members of the club who didn’t partake in Extra Life hosted events around campus to bring everyone together. Everyone gathered later on in the night to play games and stay motivated to finish the event.
Around 10 PM, members of the club gathered to watch the movie “Cabin in the Woods.” They turned the viewing into a game by notifying the rest of the group whenever they found a horror movie trope.
Eileen Stall ’14 was the Gaming Club’s coordinator for the event. She discovered Extra Life over the summer and brought it to the club’s attention earlier this fall. Stall chose Extra Life because of the fact that it didn’t restrict its participants to video or computer games. Because games of any kind are allowed, the event is more accessible to non-gamers.
Members of the club spent the week leading up to the event advertising at a table outside of Harris and received many donations from students. Matt Mitchell ’13 raffled off an Xbox 360 to Conn students who sponsored an Extra Life participant.
Stall took part in the Extra Life event and chose to play only competitive player versus player video games for the duration of the event. Stall streamed her play over the Internet throughout the day so that donors could watch and support. The purpose of the live stream was to get people interested and make them aware of the Extra Life organization.
Eileen admitted that it was hard to stay awake for twenty-four hours straight, but overall, she enjoyed the experience. She found it comforting to know that there were others around the country who were involved in the same event and that they were just as tired as she was.
Stall and the Gaming Club’s president, Max Novak ’13, thought that Extra Life was very successful and want to make it an annual event. Next year, they hope to work with the college to find a communal space that can stay open for twenty-four hours. Novak hopes to make the student body aware of Extra Life and get them involved in the cause. One way he wants to do that is by linking the Gaming Club’s Twitter feed to the college’s feed, and spread the word through social media.
