The Sacramento State Esports club is taking part in the popular charity, Extra Life, an organization where streamers can put their donations towards helping hospitals or people in need. The fundraiser will last from 8 p.m. on April 24 to 8 p.m. April 25.

Extra Life started in 2008 supporting local hospitals and has raised over $70 million since then. Streamers from all over the United States take part in a usually 24-48 hour stream to raise as much money as possible. 

“So the reasoning is two fold,” said Gabriel “Gabbork” Costa over Discord. “One, I don’t know of any esports club that doesn’t want to work with Extra Life to help raise money for a good cause. The second is that as a sports club we have a certain number of volunteer hours we need to meet every year.”

The proceeds are given to hospitals to do with what they wish and generally Extra Life will prioritize hospitals geographically close to the participants unless otherwise stated, according to Extra Life’s website. With COVID-19 still around, hospitals can use all the help they can get.

“Originally we had planned on doing that at happy tails which is an animal rescue group walking distance from campus but with the COVID shut down we needed to look at online options,” said Julia “MissLia” Barge, president of the Esports club. “It was kind of the perfect storm of something that needs to be done online at the time that we’re only allowed to do online volunteer work.”

This is the first time the Esports club has participated in an Extra Life charity stream but not the first charity event they’ve done. In the past, the club has hosted smaller charity events for volunteer hours and even recorded audio books. 

“Soal (Student Organization and Leadership) clubs get a bit of funding for doing community service,” said Isaac “jfreak51” Rodriguez, the club’s safety officer. “So we wanted to help out a cause we’re actually invested in to meet that quota.” 

The club plans to host club members throughout the stream on their Twitch account where they will be playing a combination of party games and joining teams to play online in popular games.

“You can look at it as something like a relay race,” said Barge. “We’ll be passing off the stream to different club members throughout the 24 hours, so the more people that participate the more fun it will be.”

Activities being considered are: in-house tournaments for Valorant and Teamfight Tactics, Among Us, opportunity drawings, 1v1’s in multiple games, Jackbox, Overcooked and Ultimate Chicken Horse.