For those who have not heard of this before: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

Its a charity that was started by the folks at penny arcade in 2003, in response to the ever-growing stereotype that gamers are all violent, depressed people hellbent on destroying everything that comes into their path. Their mission was to turn this negative vibe about gamers around. They said hey, lets put up a donation list for the local children's hospital, consisting of games, toys, CDs, consoles, etc. so those kids feeling lonely and afraid in the hospital would know that there are others out there like them, and who care. Some of the toys like the consoles will be kept at the hospital for future patients to come, others will be given away as gifts to the kids as they are released.

Since then, they've raised more than a million dollars in consoles, toys, etc since last year. They've expanded it to include hospitals in many states of the US, and in other countries as well as of this year. And now they need help again.

Even if you don't buy something expensive, you're still in all likelihood putting a smile on a kid's face. Let those kids that are in bad shape, or just recovering and not able to be released yet know, you care about them. Give them something to smile about in the face of adversity. Each of the game controllers represents a hospital, clicking on it will bring up a link to the Amazon wishlist associated with the hospital, where you can then place an order for it.

Even if you don't buy anything spread the word to your family, your friends, your coworkers, whoever may listen.

That's such an awesome idea. I try to pick up a few extra gifts each year and take them by our local (http://www.umc.edu/childhosp.html) children's hospital. Keep in mind that gifts don't necessarily have to be for the kids. Hospitals usually receive overwhelming response from their respective communities along with programs such as Toys for Tots (http://toysfortots2005.com/magnoliaPublic/google/home.html), but it's sometimes forgotten that these little guy's and girl's parents are having one of the toughest times of their lives as well.

One year, we'd all gotten these little Christmas mugs at work. Just ordinary coffee mugs. I'm horribly obsessive, so I have 1 or 2 cups that I will drink out of. Early that morning, we ran a call on a baby. She was 10ish months old iirc. She had been through 2 surgeries (can't remember exactly what they were), but was having complications after the second. The mother was a nervous wreck. She was hysterical at the thought of being in another hospital for an unknown amount of time....again. Anyway, later that night, we went to check on the little girl. It turned out that the family would be staying at the hospital for at least 2 weeks and that the baby would have to have another surgery soon. Mom was again hysterical. This was near the end of our shift, so it must've been abotu 0430-0500. We went to a corner shop that had fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee every morning, which we always got for free because we were the designated doughnut crew for the ER staff when they needed sugar highs to make it to end of shift at 0700. We got the usual for everyone in the ER and 4 large coffees, 1 of them in the plain old coffee mug.

I've never seen a more grateful group of adults than I did that morning. We went with the Peds ER staff and took the coffee and doughnuts to the family. Mom and Dad and grandparents were there. We gave mom the mug and she cried over it.

So, as you see, it doesn't matter what you contribute, but if you have that little bit extra, please do try to give something.

*Bump*

I hope you don't mind, but I pretty much copied and pasted your post onto my LAN party's boards. This is one of my favorite charities.

Spread it 'round, I don't care. Its a worthy cause.

I'm donating.