Jon Watts Charity Game-A-Thon @ Mr Video - Doernbecher Fund Raiser

The Game-A-Thon is a Jon Watts Charity event to raise money for Doernbecher Children's Hospital.  This is Jon's 5th year holding the charity and the 4th year Mr Video has hosted the event.  Jon plays video games for 24 hours straight with two breaks and people can sponsor him during the 24 hours.  They can also sit in and play games with him.

From Jon's Facebook Account:
"I was mentoring a 6th grader at a local school for about a year.  During summer break he contacted me and said he was diagnosed with cancer.  It broke my heart.  And I knew then that I wanted to support that hospital that he went to which is Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, OR.

"So in 2011 I started the Game-A-Thon, which is like a jog a thon(but much less sweating).  People really got into it and became a "pledger and/or player".  That first year I played two hours at my work place(Costco) then hurried home and finnished there all to the tune of $527 raised for Doernbecher's.

"Mr Video(the one, and only) video store in Salem, OR got involved on the 3rd year by hosting the whole 24 hours in the store.  We all had so much fun the owner has opened his doors again to host for it's 5th year as well.

"Will you help us reach our goal of $4,000 this year?!"

Once we (Mr Video) got involved we expanded to a Raffle and a BBQ to raise even more money and to make it more of an event.  Local businesses supply the prizes for the $1.00 Raffle, Tony's Kingdom of Comics, Town & Country Bowling, LimeBerry Keizer & Mr Video to name a few.  We setup additional TV's and Video Games and have a Multicade Arcade that plays 60 classic video games from the 80's.  We organize mini-tournaments on this arcade for the kids and give prizes to the winners through out the event.

We also keep the store open 36 hours to allow people to come and go through out the night.

Doernbecher has been very close to our heart.  Our first connection to Doernbecher's was from one of our former employee's son, who has autism, was and is being treated at Doernbecher's and then this past October our son was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes.  We were told by our local doctor to immediately drive up to Doernbecher about 8 at night and were checked directly into ICU.  Over the next 3 days we had a crash course on Type I.  The hospital and it's staff were amazing and don't know what we would do without them.