I put in a frontpage feature request for this but the ticket has been Pending for 3 weeks so in anticipation of that perhaps not getting approved (unless they do it the day of the feature because the approval is what activates said feature, I don't know) I'd like to post about it here.
https://gator.co/extralife <-- All the info is there (link takes you to our official Extra Life charity page which has a not-as-easy-to-share URL), including the history of why I do Extra Life every year, where donations will go, what you will receive if you donate, and the full schedule of events.
This year's marathon is #13 so we're playing into that by theming it predominately with horror/monster-themed games. There are 28 games on the schedule, of which 24 meet this year's theme criteria (the others are traditional runs done every year). Of those 24 themed games, 19 of them are brand new to our Extra Life marathons so I've had to learn that many new runs in the weeks/months leading up to this weekend. The big draw this year, aside from all the horror games, is our Bible Buffet feature; I partnered with Displaced Gamers on YouTube to develop a custom cheat code that will let me play every single space on the game board, the first time anything like this has ever been done by anyone.
I take my charity stuff very seriously, and Extra Life is routinely the channel's biggest draw every single year. I've done them for so long and raised so much money for my chosen hospital that Extra Life themselves recognized me with one of their Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2023, and earlier this year the hospital I raise money for awarded me one of their Miracle Awards which are generally reserved for their large corporate sponsors. For as long as Extra Life has made the metrics public, my event has been the #1 fundraiser for the hospital and we're consistently in the top 100 total fundraisers in the state of Texas (usually top 50 but not always). So, yeah it's not a scam or anything. :P
If you donate $7 I will send you two stickers and an autographed COLA card anywhere in the world to the address you provide (which is not shown publicly). You will get a Gatorbox logo and our channel mascot Nessie in her beachwear (pictures are on the Extra Life page). For every $100 milestone reached I will set aside time to do community-submitted game challenges. Usually these are just massive trolls that, while possible, are for games that are total crap and exist to torment me.
Now that the marathon has ended I wanted to come back to this post to thank the SRC staff for the front page feature. The marathon was a hit this year, even if learning 19 new runs for it over the course of the past 3 or so months was... a challenge, to put it lightly. We had our "marathon luck", our "that's never happened before" moments, the whole lot of it.
For those curious how the numbers shook out, my event reached #691 for the highest-grossing fundraisers throughout the entire USA. That number seems a bit low, but when you refine it further a different story emerges; we wound up at #32 for all fundraisers in the state of Texas which is a big deal because if you refer to the previous post I said this:
we're consistently in the top 100 total fundraisers in the state of Texas (usually top 50 but not always)
So, not only did we reach top 50 again but we came close to top 25, and I believe #32 is a new best for the channel but I'd have to dig through my notes from prior years to find out for certain. But, the more important figure to note is that for the sixth straight year the event was #1 for our chosen hospital.
We had a lot of donations come in and if you were one of them, then I want to genuinely thank you for your contribution. If you're late to the party, I believe the donation page is still open until December 31st - however, the incentive option to get the stickers for $7 will have closed by now. If you want the stickers, I will still honor that deal if you make a late donation and include a valid email address with your donation so I can contact you to know where to send the stickers. (And, if you're reading this post way WAY in the future long after this event has ended and still want the stickers, I might have some left on my Etsy store. XD)
edit: If you MISSED the marathon entirely but want to see how everything panned out, keep an eye on this playlist on YouTube. I am going to start breaking up the VODs (which were too long to be auto-saved to YouTube) and uploading the individual runs and challenges here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2peXz1kgfc4JOsrKlKiukfh9OMuXECLp