Do your kids enjoy playing video games on Saturday or a weekday after homework’s done to help them wind down and relax?  Leisure activities are important to the health and well being of everyone, and even more so for kids who are fighting serious diseases. Wouldn’t it be great if your kids could help other kids have fun playing video games when they need it most and often can’t do other activities?  They can.

Child’s Play (CP) and DonateGames (DG) are two organizations that help put games in the hands of sick children. DG also resells unwanted electronics and gives the proceeds to children’s rare disease research and treatment.

Did your family get a cool new gaming system for Christmas? Have an older system that the kids don’t use as much anymore?  Or have you replaced your laptop with a new one? Got a new cell phone and haven’t decided what to do with the old one yet?  Many of us know we can give old phones to charities to help them raise money, but did you know you can also give old computers, games and gaming systems to DG to support its programs? 

One of the best ways to help DG is to sponsor a video game drive at your school, church or other community organization.  DG will help you organize it by providing posters, press releases and drop-boxes. Then DG will give the collected games directly to sick children or sell them in its online store to raise money for children’s rare disease research and treatment.  You can buy video games there as well or make donations to support DG.

Child’s Play works in two ways to provide games for children in hospitals and therapy centers. Hospital staff creates wish lists of video games, toys, books and other fun stuff for kids. You can find these lists on the CP website by clicking on a hospital location and then provide a gift from the list.

You can also give a cash donation to Child’s Play. With the money, CP purchases new consoles, peripherals, games, and more.

Most kids can see the need for other kids to spend some down time playing, especially kids who are getting treated for things like cancer, kidney disease or other life threatening illnesses.  Maybe they would be willing to give up a week’s allowance or more to donate to Child’s Play or Donate Games.  Perhaps they would give up some games as well.

It’s always good to try to relate charity to something your child can see, touch or feel, like giving toys he picks out at Christmas or in this case, sending in some games or a game system so other kids can play games, too. That way it is more real to him and he can point back to the day he sent his old Xbox or a new game he purchased to a sick child who needed it.