NAIT students participating in Extra Life Edmonton’s Game Day 2022 will be gaming for 24 hours to raise money for the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. This year, NAITSA is sponsoring the event, which starts at noon on November 5 and ends at noon the following day. Lisa Hawthorne, Extra Life Edmonton’s president, is anticipating another year of record-breaking fundraising efforts.
“We like to smash through those barriers every year. We beat our records almost every year, which is incredible. It’s such an engaging group and they work so, so hard in raising. Last year we raised $345,000 so we are looking to bust through that if we can, and I think we can,” said Hawthorne.
The HP Centre computer commons is the home base for a LAN gaming marathon exclusive to NAIT students and NAITSA clubs who fundraised to secure a spot. Extra Life Edmonton will provide the students with dinner and a pancake breakfast in the morning with help from one of the Stollery partners.
“It’s an opportunity to get to know the community and the fundraisers and to celebrate what we do, and also to connect with people and group up in person, and we haven’t been able to do that for a couple of years,” said Hawthorne. “We’re so excited to welcome some new NAIT fundraisers as well.”
Broadcasts from the private LAN event at NAIT will be shared with Extra Life Edmonton’s Discord server, where most of the Game Day 2022 activities will occur.
“One of the things that people are really going to want to do is join the Discord at discord.gg/YEGExtraLife, because we’re going to have a lot of stuff going on,” said Hawthorne. “We’re going to be doing a lot of online gaming and we’re going to have tournaments throughout the day where people can win some really cool 3D-printed trophies from Porzellan Props … we have another space in the Discord where you can create a room of your own and you can group up with your friends in there virtually.”
This isn’t the first time Extra Life Edmonton and NAIT students have teamed up. In the past, NR92 joined Extra Life Edmonton’s Discord for a fundraising day of their own. The NAIT radio students ended up “smashing through” their previous fundraising goals, said Hawthorne.
“That was really successful … they ran through some Halo during that event and that was really fun, so [we’ll take] any opportunity that we have to partner up with NAIT or the clubs, so definitely come into the Discord, hit us up, or go through NAITSA and talk to them.”
“Come join the community, fundraise, it’s a wonderful group of people. We’re 800 fundraisers strong and we just want to take over the world of fundraising,” Hawthorne laughed.
Students who are interested in partnering with Extra Life Edmonton to support the Stollery Children’s Hospital can follow Extra Life Edmonton on social media, join their Discord or check out YEGExtraLife.org, where they can create a fundraiser profile. More information on Game Day 2022 can be found on the Ooks Life website.
“It’s a really great opportunity to come and bring in whatever gaming hobby that you have and to create your own kind of game day.”
