Fundraising for SpecialEffect

*dons serious hat for a minute or two*

As a lot of you, dear readers, may already be aware – a segment of this years big competition is dedicated to raising some games for SpecialEffect’s Games For Helen project. Here at Remakes Towers, we’re massive proponents of game accessibility, and indeed one of the only reasons we agreed that a competition would be a good idea to run was so that we could try and get a few more accessible titles out there. Never let it be said that we’re not shallow here.

The end of the competition is a while away (and if you’ve not signed up yet and want to submit an entry, there’s still a couple of weeks left to get your email off to me) and from a daily glance around our forum, there’s a lot of lovely titles coming up and it looks like we’re set for a real high quality haul this time round.

I’m not really posting tonight to plug the competition though, nopers – I don’t need my serious hat for that. We’re doing a bit of a fundraising drive for SpecialEffect because we think what they do is frankly awesome beyond reasoning.

SpecialEffect is a charity dedicated to helping ALL young people with disabilities to enjoy computer games. For these children, the majority of computer games are simply too quick or too difficult to play, and we can help them and their parents to find out which games they CAN play, and how to adapt those games that they can’t

It sounds like a relatively simple thing, but accessible tech is an expensive do, as is training, support and all of the other things that go hand in hand with doing that thing that SpecialEffect do. And despite what so many segments of the media try and convince you with the constant repeated Vaz-isms and as silly as it may sound to some, games can do brilliant things.

If you’re reading this then it’s likely that you’re a long term gamer. Imagine for a second that you’d never had the opportunities to experience games for whatever reason, be it illness, disability whatever. Imagine what a massive difference to someone’s quality of life that something like games can actually make.

Not sure? Take a look at this video of what Special Effect do:

So, we’re trying to raise at least £500 to send over to SpecialEffect to help them along the way. We announced our crazy plan to raise some money ( “What’s the plan?”, you may ask. “Ask nicely”, we reply) this morning both on the RR forums and to those lovely chaps and close friends of RR, Way Of The Rodent forums and well, we’re already sitting at £130 (excluding gift aid stuff). Quite the way towards the target. That’s an incredible start and I’m so utterly grateful right now it’s hard to express myself without gibbering.

We’ve set up a Justgiving page, chaps and chappettes. It’s the easiest and fastest way to get donations* over to SpecialEffect, and for UK donators they handle all the GiftAid stuff cleanly and efficiently which means a bit of extra cash courtesy of the government for every donation made. Which is a good thing, obviously.

I guess this is the bit where we ask nicely then. I know it’s a bit of a rough financial climate out there right now, I know it’s coming up to Christmas too which is never the best time to come out cap in hand, but dear readers, if you’ve got a couple of quid going spare and like me, you think that what SpecialEffect do is a good thing – then please, donate a couple of quid to the cause. You don’t have to donate, obviously – we’re not going to pressurise anyone into it, we’re not going to be banging a gong every other news post (although we might slip a widget into the sidebar) or anything like that. It’d be lovely if you could though.

As I say, we’re aiming for £500 and the page is up for 12 months from today. If enough people donate even just a couple of quid then we can help make a massive difference to the quality of life that some kids will have. If we can break the £500 barrier, well, the more cash over SpecialEffect’s way the better, right? It all helps.

I’m so chuffed right now with the response and generosity of folks so far, and I’m glad it’s not just me who gets it. So, I’d like to thank everyone who’s donated to date and everyone who’s considered a donation and everyone who’s been really nice and supportive of this utterly crazy idea. I’m hoping that between the lot of us we can get a nice sum of cash together and make a real difference.

Here’s the page again: http://www.justgiving.com/retroremakes. If you could, give the justgiving page a Digg, blog about it, pass it round. Let’s make this awesome. Let’s do some good.

Thanks for reading this far and well, thanks for being brilliant.

*They don’t take Paypal though, I’m afraid. It’s credit or debit cards only, sorry.