For those of you unfamiliar with Extra Life, it is a charity to benefit Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. And the main event that the charity and its supporters engage in is…gaming:

Extra Life began in 2008 as a way of honoring a young lady named Victoria Enmon. Tori’s battle against acute lymphoblastic leukemia inspired the Sarcastic Gamer Community in a way that is difficult to describe. Members sent in video games and bought gifts to keep Tori’s spirits up despite numerous hospital stays and three bouts with the deadly disease.

Tragically, we lost Tori to cancer in January 2008. Later that year, I asked my partners at Sarcastic Gamer if they would be interested in Extra Life, a 24-hour video game marathon to raise money for the hospital that treated and fought beside Tori. In 2008 and 2009 Extra Life raised a combined $302,000, 100 percent of which went directly to help kids like Tori at my local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital (Texas Children’s Hospital).

While thousands of gamers, more than 100 websites and more than 12,000 donors were happy to support Extra Life, many expressed their desire to raise money to help kids closer to home. In what I can only consider destiny, in 2009 I left behind my radio career and went to work full-time for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals as a Radiothon Director. This life-changing event gave me unique insight into an incredible non-profit organization that helps kids all over the United States and Canada.

Our own Browncoat Jayson will be taking part in Extra Life this year, and he wants to build up support from the Shroud of the Avatar community to see that the game gets played over a livestream for the full 24-hour duration of the event:

…I’m not asking you to start campaigning yet (although that will come). What I’d like to do first is get our awesome community together and make a full day of events. 24-hours is a lot of time to play a game, but I know we can host more than any player can do in one day! So let’s do it!

If you have an event you’d like to sponsor, let me know. Events will begin at 8am Central on Saturday and run until 8am on Sunday.

I’d really like to see things that players new to Shroud of the Avatar will enjoy: Gustball, Welcome Quest, stargazing, dungeon runs, anything!

It looks like a number of community members and groups have already begun lining up to participate in this, but there are still lots of time slots open; hit up Jayson’s forum thread to contribute ideas and/or your time. Extra Life is a really worthwhile charity; I’ve participated in it myself before. And, as a father, I’ve also seen first-hand the good that Children’s Miracle Network hospitals do…there are few causes more noble and more worthy of support.