Extra Life 2016 happened this past weekend (November 5th and 6th). For this year Windsor gamers returned to Brimstone games for 24 hours of gaming. I thought I would take some time today to re-cap the event.

This year the awesome gamers of Windsor Ontario raised $2819 USD for The Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals. This money went to the Children's Health Foundation in London and Sick Kids in Toronto. This brings us to a grand total of over $11,000 USD raised for Extra Life by members of the Windsor Gaming Resource since we started participating four years ago.

A large chunk of the money raised this year came from the live gaming and geekery auction which was held at 8pm on November 5th. The auction alone raised $1419 CAD and I would like to personally thank everyone who donated items to this auction. Also eight local gamers joined the online Windsor Gaming Resource team and the highest earner from this group was David Hutchinson who raised just over $500 USD. Congratulations on your first Extra Life silver metal David! The rest of the money was raised through the sale of baked goods and The Cheat Box.

The Cheat Box is something I encourage anyone hosting an Extra Life event to have. For a $1 donation to the Cheat Box, a game player can cheat in their current game once. Discard and draw an extra card. Re-roll a die. Ignore an event for one round. Etc. All players playing have to agree to this when it's done but remember it's all about having fun and helping kids.

A shout out to our awesome sponsors:

The biggest thanks goes to Brimstone games which hosted the event for the fourth year in a row. Special thanks for letting our auction winners use your debit machine :D

This year I approached and was approached by a variety of local companies to be sponsors. This was fantastic to see The Cheese Bar, Robbie's Gourmet Sausage Co, Little Foot Foods, Rogues Gallery Comics, The Walkerville Tavern, Villains Beastro, The Coffee Exchange and Hidden Trail Escape Rooms as sponsors. All of these great Windsor small businesses stepped up and offered their support in the form of cash donations or gift cards which we used to reward participants who raised money for the event.

We also had the support of some fantastic game companies who provided us with cash donations, games to play and games for our auction. Big thanks to CMON (Cool Mini or Not), Stronghold Games, AEG (Alerac Entertainment Group), Rio Grande Games and USAopoly.

It's not too late to show your support!

If you couldn't attend the event or didn't hear about it in time, it's not too late to show your support through an online donation. Donations for this year's event are open until December 31st 2016. To donate click here and choose one of our team members to donate to:

Next year I hope to see even more local support, even more gamers out gaming for this great cause and even more money raised, For The Kids!

November 5th and 6th 2016 members of the Windsor Gaming Resource will be gathering at Brimstone Games to play games for 24 hours in support of Extra Life.

This is our fourth year in a row supporting Extra Life as a group (some individual members have been doing it longer). Over the last three years we have raised over $8700 U.S. for the Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals. This year we are striving to break the $10,000 mark!

What is Extra Life?

Extra Life was started in 2008 by the Sarcastic Gamer Community as a tribute to one specific leukemia victim: Victoria Enmon. The group created a 24-hour long video game marathon to raise money for the hospital that treated and fought beside Tori. 100% of the funds raised went to the local Children's Miracle Network.

Now thousands of gamers have joined in this annual event. In 2009 the event spread allowing participants to donate to the Hospital of their choice and now hundreds of websites and tens of thousands of gamers will take part in this charity event this year.

What is the WGR doing for Extra Life?

As many members as possible are going to head to Brimstone Games at 10:00am on Saturday November 5th. Once there it's simple: we game, and we game for 12 hours straight. Then we repeat the same thing on Sunday November the 6th, at 10am, gaming for another 12 hours straight. That's 24 hours of gaming total! We will be playing board games, miniature games and maybe even some pen and paper roleplaying games.

In addition to all the gaming, at 8:00pm on Saturday night we will also be hosting a live game auction. Anyone is welcome to attend this portion of the event. We've got a great selection of games to auction off and 100% of the proceeds will be going to Extra Life.

You can find Brimstone at 1421 Tecumseh Rd E, Windsor, ON N8W 1C2. Parking is available in back.

What can you do to support us?

Come play games: You should come join us on the day of the event and play some games! Even if you can't come out for all 24 hours it would be awesome if you could stop in and show your support. While there play a game or two. We would love the support and encouragement. You can show up at any time during the event. Stop in after work, say hi at lunch, whenever.

Join our team: Extra Life lets groups of participants make a team page and we have one for the Windsor Gaming Resource. Even if you aren't going to actually come out to Brimstone and play with us, if you are going to participate at home or at your own FLGS we would love to have you on our team. Click here to join up!

Sponsor a Windsor Gaming Resource member: Any amount helps, even a buck, and the Extra Life site has a wide variety of payment options even including a monthly donation deal. They also offer charity receipts.

Participate in the live auction: The auction will be held at 8pm on Saturday November 5th and there will be a wide variety of new and used games and other geeky items on the auction block. All money raised will be donated to Extra Life through the group page.

Donate games: Are you a game publisher? Do you have too many games and don't know what to do with them? How about donating your games to the cause. You can either give them to us to play during the event or you can donate them to be sold at the live auction. Any donations can be dropped off at Brimstone Games up to and including the day of the event or contact gilvanblight(at)gmail.com to make arrangement before then.