Thank You — A Critical Cause 2018 Raised Over $4,500 To Support Mental Health Initiatives In Winnipeg
24 hours of streaming on Twitch, amazing guests, lots of fun, and tons of love to you all ❤
On April 28, 2018, we started streaming video games at 12 p.m.. We didn’t stop until we’d gone for 24 hours, and we did it all to support mental health initiatives in Winnipeg.
Thanks to all of you, we raised over $4,500 to add to the “A Critical Cause” charity fund. The money you donated is now part of a fund that will provide funding to Winnipeg mental health organizations on a regular basis every year, in perpetuity.
We’d like to thank everyone from the bottom, top, sides, and middles of our hearts.
Thank you for donating
You’re all really awesome, you know that? Thank you for believing in the mental health organizations in our city. When we first started our fund, we considered becoming a completely separate charity, but then we realized we could support organizations that are already doing great work in Winnipeg. This is how gamers and Winnipeggers can support local initiatives in a regular, recurring way!
You took us all the way to forty-five hundos!
Thank you to our viewers
You stuck with us for hours upon hours while we struggled at co-operative games in the middle of the night, were terrible at making food at Overcooked!, and cheered us through the final hours while you tried to win giveaways that the hosts held hostage for donation milestones.
Thank you to our guests
You spent your valuable time with us, shared stories about mental health, showcased your amazing indie games, and helped keep us sane for 24 hours. The highlight of the stream, for us, is interacting, interviewing, and spending time with the amazing people of Winnipeg who love games, and who are passionate supporters of creating a better mental health situation for everyone.
We really appreciate it, and all of you! ❤
- Adrian Cheater — CTO, Complex Games
- Danelle Cloutier — Producer, CBC
- Dan Vadeboncoeur — Fanquest Organizer and Media Nerds Podcaster
- Chip Damage — Winnipeg’s Fighting Game Community
- Griffin Jenkins — MDAM Director of Education and Youth Services
- Extra Life Winnipeg
- Daniel Voth — Admin and Organizer at the Winnipeg Game Collective
- Dylan Fries — Co-founder of Winnipeg Game Jam/Winnipeg Game Collective
- Jennifer Aarhus — The Winnipeg Foundation
- Tee Demetrioff — CMHA Representative
- Kyente — Partnered Twitch Streamer and Rabbit Enthusiast
- RuthAnne aka @Bunheadwhat — Twitch WPG Co-Founder/Kyente Enthusiast
- Shawn Bernard — Streamer, Developer, All-Star Extra Lifer
- Colton DeVos — Marketing & Communications Specialist And Rad Dad
- Jon Pirrie — StoryUp Games
- Cameron Mitchell — Camnesiac.com
- Scott Billeck — NHL.com Writer
- Matt Woelk — Winnipeg Game Developer
- Josh Jaques — Winnipeg Game Developer
Thank you to the sponsors
You gave us things to give away to our loyal viewers, and spread the word about our stream on social media. We really appreciate what the gaming industry does to support mental health, and we couldn’t have pulled this off without all of you.
A special thank you to Kara Marozas
Kara joined us for a grueling 9 hour art session where she bent to the whims of the Twitch chat to produce some great pieces. We really appreciate having Kara on to entertain and inspire us with her artistic talents!
Thank you to the Winnipeg Foundation
Thank you for helping us set up our fund and for giving us a great location to slowly but surely fill with our gamer musk for a weekend. You shepherded us through our network issues and always provide great temporary accommodations for us to host this event in.
Thank you to everyone else who volunteered, shouted out, and helped make this happen!
This was a year filled with highlights, and, if we could toot our own horns for just a second, some of the best organizing we’ve ever done for this event. But none of this would be possible without all the help we had from friends and family.
You all made this turn into something bigger than we thought it could, and we have even more plans for future events.
We have a great team, and thank you to each member of the Critical Cause team for putting together emails for sponsors, reaching out to guests, and promoting this thing to everyone they know. Every little bit helps, and I love y’all.
We’ve learned so much over the years, and we just want to keep making things better.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank my wife, Alex, for supporting me through my own mental health struggles, and being an emotional pillar for me. I’m also sorry I took away the computer to use for the stream, thus taking away our media server for the weekend. I love you Alex.
Here’s A Taste of Late Night
What can happen to normal minds after 18 hours of streaming? We present two clips in a very emotional segment of the co-operative game ‘A Way Out’.
We’d been playing this game for a few hours, and we’d escaped from prison, run through the woods, and our two characters had become brothers in arms. Now, they finally had a quiet moment alone with the family of the long nosed Vincent.
Here, we meet the son of Vincent, find his basketball, and later, share a touching moment with him.
For more highlights from the stream, please check out the VODs on our Twitch channel.
A Critical Cause is a yearly charity event and community fund run by, and for, people in Winnipeg who have struggled and are struggling with mental illness.
We want to make a difference in our city with better programs and resources to make living with mental illness something that doesn’t stop people from achieving their true potential.
Every year we put together a 24 hour charity stream with amazing guests, crazy giveaways, and a ton of fun. We band together as gamers to raise money for mental health initiatives in Winnipeg, and to talk about mental health in a safe and honest way.
Learn more at http://criticalcause.org
