At the end of September, along with Child’s Play Charity, we made two stops on the East Coast. First up, we met with Child Life staff and handed out gifts to child patients at the Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo in New York. The Minecraft plushes were a big hit and Hope The Monkey’s were aplenty and given to the younger patients right alongside our toys and books.

Thank you to the awesome team at Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo for having us! Looking forward to seeing you all again!

Next up, we took a short jaunt over to the fine city of Brotherly Love.

While we didn’t get a flick of Hope The Monkey running the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art via Rocky we did get the chance to have a cheesesteak after our visit!

Of course, this was not our main intent while visiting Philadelphia…

We came fully prepared to meet and greet with the wonderful patients and Child Life staff at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For this stop, along with meeting with the patients and bringing a catered lunch to the staff, we brought along a mobile gaming station with a PS4 set-up so the kids and staff could play some games and enjoy their day together.

A bit later in the month, we made our way out to Sacramento for a unique day where we made stops at two different hospitals.

It turns out that UC Davis Medical and Shriners Northern California are right across the street from each other. This allowed us to deliver gifts to the patients and treat the Child Life staff members to lunch and/or a snack at two facilities in one day!

We spent the first half of the day at UC Davis Medical. At this Children’s Hospital, as well as all the others, we always meet special children with eclectic little personalities. Below is a picture of one of the special patients who was extremely excited that she had just received a Littlest Pet Shop play set.

We enjoyed having lunch with the Child Life staff at UC Davis Medical where we were able to discuss options on how to improve their gaming set-ups! To note, we were able to send a few new controllers to the facility after we saw they needed them!

If you’ve ever experienced visiting a Shriners Hospital you know they are places that pay special attention to their child patients. The size of the recreational spaces and options for activities bring life to the floors and a positive vibrant energy fills the space that is simply impossible to ignore.

We met up with the Child Life staff at Shriners Northern California for a sit down conversation on all things gaming. Along with the Childs Play team, we will be working with Shriners to ensure that all of their gaming platforms are up to date and that the endless possibilities of the VR and AR space are available to them.

Next up, along with Childs Play, we headed up to into the great Pacific Northwest to meet with the Child Life staff at Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children’s Hospital. It was here that we spent some time discussing all of the gaming options we could provide for their patients. The staff had a lot of questions about our program and we were happy to provide them with answers, and we were excited about possibilities in VR and AR!

At each and every one of the stops we make on the Gamers Give Back Tour, we are humbled by the genuine love and kindness the Child Life staff shows for the patients they care for.

While it must be incredibly emotional to be involved with children and their families going through their daily motions while facing life-threatening illnesses head on, the Child Life staff approach their jobs in a human way with the knowledge and diligence to do what is right for the kids and do so in a caring manner on a daily basis with grace and a smile on their face. Our whole team is constantly in awe of their strength and it only makes us even more committed to doing what we do as a charity.

To all of the Child Life staff we meet, a humble “thank you” for having us!

The post The Gamers Give Back Tour Fall 2017 Recap! first appeared on GameChanger Charity.

First off, we want to give a HUGE THANK YOU to our team of amazing streamers representing us at TwitchCon 2017 Charity Decathlon.

For Reference, this was our roster of players on the Charity Team: 

1. The Rocket League Rockdown: CrReam
2. Coloring for Dummies Challenge: SimplyJxn and Danotage
3. The Long beach Brawlhalla Beatdown: dmbrandon
4. Jingle all the Way Contest: Littlesiha and WyvernSlayer
5. Let The Sparcs Fly Challenge: A_jaxx
6. You Don’t Know Jack! Challenge: Kyente
7. The Sandwich Smashdown Challenge: Rypsii and lumiipvp
8. Tastes Like Chicken Challenge: Tashnarr
9. Build me up, Buttercup Challenge: 8BitDylan
10. Battle of the Musicians: VideoGameRapBattles

What can we say except WOW and THANK YOU! The attention you are bringing toward our mission is incredibly important and we couldn’t be happier about the enthusiasm shown by all of our Charity Team members who represented for us on the Tiltify Charity Stage.

Friday, the first day of TwitchCon, was a wonderful blur! Our booth was located in the Tiltify charity plaza. Many people came by our booth eager to say hello and many Hope The Monkey plush animals, GameChanger drawstring bags, stickers, and bracelets made their way into the hands of convention goers who support our cause!

Situated next to a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, our booth attracted many different types of people. We had a ton of great swag on deck and spent time talking with all visitors who came to ask questions and learn more about GameChanger Charity.

As a bonus, our booth also had a new game that all could try out titled Ihope. Stay tuned to our blog as there is more to come on this soon!

The fun didn’t stop once the sun set. Just as soon as we wrapped up on the floor for day one we headed over to VillainCon, an amazing party put on by Blizzard. The party had two different levels of fun, featured exclusive masks and pins, and was set in the gorgeous Federal bar in Long Beach.

There was still one more stop to make! Tiltify hosted a party on the Queen Mary!! This incredible old cruise ship rests in the Long Beach harbor and is always a sight to see. Wonderful job at throwing the party, Tiltify!

Back to the convention floor…

Saturday brought with it a new crowd of visitors to the Charity Plaza. Our giveaway efforts were in full swing and many streamers were signing up with us to join up with us on future charity stream efforts!

When you walk around an event the size of TwitchCon you really start to get a feeling for all the different types of people who love gaming and the new platforms such as Twitch that are making it possible for all of us to join together in the world of live streaming. There are so many different artists, gamers, fans, and general enthusiasts who were all interacting with one another and enjoying their time together.

Oh yeah, there was Twitch merch. Can’t forget the Twitch merch!!!

Child’s Play Charity, our partners on the Gamers Give Back Tour, hosted an ENTIRE ARCADE where all games were free resting just behind their booth!

Not far from the arcade was the Design by Humans booth. Design by Humans has been wonderful in helping us get our name out and even created the shirts we wore for the event! You can check out the GameChanger merch they have helped us create by clicking on this page.

On Sunday, Nate and David, two of our GameChanger team members, joined forces with Able Gamers and Gamers Outreach to form the Charity Squad! Together, the Charity Squad took part in a Killer Queen gaming competition and, low and behold, placed as runners up only to one team, the Roof Riders! Needless to say, we were very excited for our team!!

Click here to see the 2017 list of exhibitors from the event.

We are so grateful to have been involved in TwitchCon 2017. The genuine interest in GameChanger from many people at the event is humbling for all of us and is incredibly appreciated.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook or Twitter for all future events as we continue to grow and bring innovative tech and gaming to children suffering from life-threatening illnesses.

A HUGE Thanks to Twitch and Tiltify for organizing this massive event and including GameChanger Charity in the festivities!

Till next year!!!!

The post GameChanger Charity at TwitchCon 2017 first appeared on GameChanger Charity.