Child's Play 2005

Each year around the holidays I attempt to find some charitable organization to give to and help promote in my own small way. In years past this has usually consisted of sharing news about the organization with my friends and immediate family, but this year I have a webpage...

So, as you may have guessed by the new banner at the top of this page and the title of this post, the name of my charity this year is Child's Play. The charity was founded three years ago by the authors of Penny Arcade, which is one of the online comic strips that I keep current with.

What is Child's Play? From their website:

Child's Play is a Seattle based, gamer-run organization that holds an annual toy drive for childrens' hospitals. Many of the gifts donated by gamers are, as you might imagine, age appropriate videogames and gaming systems - but they are by no means the only things donated. We received eager donations of coloring books, art supplies, crafts, movies, cartoons, virtually anything a young person could ask for. We asked the world-wide community of gamers, and they gave so much we had to move to larger storage facilities three separate times.

Things I like about this charity:

• You get to see exactly what your money is going toward because you pick the specific item that's being sent through Amazon.
  
• There are no "administrative fees" collected.
  
• You can give as much or as little as you want. Prices on requested items range from $5 for a children's book to over $150 for video game systems.
  
• You get to pick which hospital you contribute to. Just select your hospital of choice from their interactive map and you're taken immediately to that hospital's custom tailored list.

I compel everyone to follow one of the links I've provided to the Child's Play website and check them out. The following passage from their letters section says everything about why this is an amazing charity more poignantly than any of my feeble entreaties ever could:

Thank you so very much for what you're doing. To be sitting there with your child who can barely move for all the tubes and wires connected to him, who hasn't been able to eat for days and hasn't been home in weeks, who can't remember the last time he didn't feel awful and wonders if he'll ever feel good again, and have him laugh out loud when he crashes his go-kart in a video game... well, there aren't words so I won't try. Again, thank you.

-Alan, Father of a Former Patient

What the Internet has done is remove barriers to impulsive acts of generosity. When clicking a few times amounts to an act of genuine compassion, you can find good samaritans everywhere.

-Tycho, Penny Arcade

I urge you to make a donation right now. Don't let this be one of those things that you say you'll do later only to forget about. It will only take a few minutes and you'll feel good afterward.

I guarantee it.
-Dave