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A University of Maine faculty member and his graduate assistant used a marathon night of video gaming to raise over $800 in pledges for victims of the devastating Jan. 13 earthquake in Haiti.
College of Education and Human Development instructional technologist Tim Hart and graduate assistant Jonathan Allen played video games from 4 p.m. Jan. 21 to 4 p.m. Jan. 22 — 24 hours of nonstop gaming. Hart said around $810 has been collected in checks and cash for Save The Children’s Haiti Earthquake Children in Emergency Fund.
More than 2,000 viewers tuned in to an online live-stream broadcast, according to their Web site, meg4c.com — which stands for Maine Gamers for Charity. Hart said viewers were from places as far away as the United Kingdom.
According to Hart, the idea came from Extralives.org, a Web site that has given almost $17,000 to five different charities since its inception in June 2009. The Web site uses mostly three- or four-day marathons of gaming over a network of followers in order to gain money. Hart raised the possibility of a smaller-scale marathon to Allen in December.
“Then, Haiti happened,” Hart said. “So I said, ‘Let’s do it now.’”
That was on the Friday before the marathon. Hart and Allen left themselves less than a week to publicize the event. They set an initial goal of $500.
“We played on a Thursday. I bought the domain name on the Monday before. I e-mailed colleagues and friends and sent something out on Twitter on Tuesday. We did it a lot sooner than we thought we would,” Hart said. “We smashed our goal.”
The marathon took place in the computer lab in 35 Shibles Hall, to which Hart’s office is attached. It was live-streamed through an account on UStream.com. A homeschooled teenager from Pennsylvania watched the entire marathon and mailed money in, Hart said. A group of gaming enthusiasts from the U.K. logged onto the stream as well.
Once the pair started playing, they sent a bulk e-mail on UMaine’s FirstClass system. Around 10 students came knocking during different hours of the night.
“Some kids knocked on the basement window when Shibles was obviously locked. So we’d go up the stairs and let them in,” Hart said. “They’d come in and hang out and some gave us some money.”
First, Hart and Allen played and beat the Playstation 3 game “Army of Two: the 40th Day,” a two-player, first-person shooter. They then moved to the Nintendo Wii. On that console, they played “Super Mario Bros. Wii” and rounded out the event with “Wii Sports.”
Hart is an avid gamer and teaches classes at UMaine that involve responsibly integrating technology into the classroom. He teaches seven classes at UMaine, according to his profile on the university Web site. One is EDT 420 — “Educational Gaming and Simulations.”
“He is a really great guy,” wrote Rachel Hasty, of Hart’s students, in an e-mail. “It’s great to have someone teaching that is so down to earth, because it allows us to relax and be ourselves.”
Hart and Allen are “definitely” planning another marathon for early March with the goal of raising $1,000. It will again take place from a Thursday to a Friday. The pair plans to begin advertising for an additional two weeks before the event.
Hart and Allen aren’t the only members of the UMaine community looking to make a difference in the Caribbean nation of nearly 9.8 million.
Students Christopher Jander and Allison Dow are holding an informational meeting at the Wade Center in the Memorial Union on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m., according to a release from the UMaine Office of Student Organizations and Leader Development. The meeting will detail “what we can all do to make a difference” in Haiti.
Save The Children is a 90-year-old international nonprofit group specializing in aid to areas where children are adversely affected by disasters, according to its Web site. Elle Russell, the group’s manager of community engagement, said this marathon is one of many innovative fundraisers she has seen.
“I have personally been [amazed] by the outpouring of support that Save the Children has received from schools and universities around the [c]ountry,” Russell wrote in an e-mail. “Students and faculty have come up with many creative and thoughtful ways to support the relief effort in Haiti.”
According to Russell, Save the Children has been working in Haiti since 1978. So far, 85,000 Haitians have benefited from the organization’s actions. Save the Children’s goal is to reach 600,000 people by the time efforts are done in Haiti.
“In short, Save the Children is conducting the largest relief operation since the devastating Asia tsunami in 2004,” Russell wrote.
Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The capital, Port-au-Prince, was especially affected by the earthquake, which reached a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale. Approximately 1.5 million people have been left homeless by the quake, which likely killed 200,000, according to the Sofia News Agency, a Bulgarian news outlet.
