GameStop Helps Local Kids Get Back to Being Kids
Between August 29 and September 30, over 3,800 GameStop stores throughout the U.S. will be raising funds for two of their charitable partners, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and Make-A-Wish, in order to “help local kids get back to being kids.”
Customers at GameStop stores will be asked to donate $1, $5, $10 or round up their change to the nearest dollar when they make their purchase at the register with all donations being split evenly between the store’s local CMN Hospitals and Make-A-Wish.
Donations made at GameStop locations in Beaumont, Port Arthur, Silsbee, Orange, and Jasper will benefit kids at CHRISTUS Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth and Jasper Memorial hospital. Your donations help provide life-saving care and medical equipment for sick and injured kids in Southeast Texas.
This new partnership with GameStop is a natural fit for CMN Hospitals as they engage over 50,000 gamers in a 24-hour fundraising and gaming marathon through Extra Life.
Donations to Make-A-Wish help to provide life-changing wishes for children in every community in the U.S. and over 50 countries worldwide who are being treated for critical illnesses. Research shows children who have wishes granted can build the physical and emotional strength they need to fight their illness.
JaKiah Collins is just one of the millions of children supported by donations to both CMN Hospitals and Make-A-Wish. When JaKiah was just four years old, she was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
Starting preschool can be overwhelming for some four-year-olds. For JaKiah, the hardest part was saying goodbye to her classmates when she was diagnosed with kidney cancer a month into the school year after her doctors discovered that a swelling in her abdomen was actually an advanced stage Wilms’ tumor. While her school friends learned the alphabet, JaKiah underwent months of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. Donations to CMN Hospitals helped pay for the new 258,000-square-foot wing at her local hospital that houses the hematology/oncology clinic where JaKiah was treated and the healing garden where she spent days recovering.
In July 2013, about two months after JaKiah’s family found out that she was officially cancer free, Make-A-Wish granted JaKiah her wish of visiting Disney World! Thanks to donations to Make-A-Wish, JaKiah and her family were provided travel to Orlando, Florida, lodging, passes to the four Disney parks, Universal Studios and Sea World.
Now ten years old, JaKiah helps to pay it forward for other kids, serving as a national Champion ambassador for CMN Hospitals and an active participant in fundraising events for Make-A-Wish.