The Hermitcraft Charity Event and 1.7 million raised for Gamers Outreach

Photo courtesy of Dvictorio / Wikimedia Commons

This past weekend of Apr. 12 and 13, Gamers Outreach hosted its annual Gamers for Giving event. For those unfamiliar with Gamers Outreach, it is a non-profit organization, founded by Zach Wigal, that aims to provide video games to hospitals in various ways to “restore a sense of joy and normalcy in the lives of hospitalized children,” as per its mission statement.

To accomplish this task, Gamers Outreach has four main projects: GO Karts, Player 2, Portal, and Save Point. To learn more about their projects and goals, visit their website, gamersoutreach.org! If you cannot do so now, here is a brief description of each (although I highly recommend looking into it further and maybe even donating!).

GO Karts are portable video game karts made of medical-grade plastic that can be easily transported from room to room. They are readily supplied with a monitor, console, controllers, and various games. Their Player 2 volunteer program aims to assist the GO Karts and hospital staff by updating and cleaning the karts and playing with patients who want a “Player 2.” 

The Portal program provides a server for the games to run while complying with privacy restrictions. It is easily accessible to hospital staff, ensuring the already overworked staff can control it without too much additional stress. Lastly, project Save Point is a vending machine within the hospital that is equipped with game-related toys and game codes.

To help Gamers Outreach accomplish its goals, a fundraising event is held annually— named Gamers for Giving. As mentioned, this year’s event took place last weekend, and over 1.7 million dollars was raised— the highest record yet! A few things occurred during this event: the GFG LAN Party and stream marathons, “Streamathons” hosted by content creators, and some exciting announcements.

The LAN Party started on Apr. 11 and took place in Eastern Michigan University’s George Gervin GameAbove Center— the schedule and details for this past weekend can be found here! Additionally, the Streamathons included the third annual Hermitcraft Charity Event, with the “Hermits” being one of the top contributors to this year’s— and previous ones —fundraising efforts. As someone who has never moved on from their fifth-grade interests (please do not look at my Minecraft (2011) screen time on the weekends), I was fully tuned into the Hermitcraft Charity Event as much as possible. 

Hermitcraft is a Minecraft (2011) Survival Multiplayer (SMP) that began in Apr. 2012. Over its thirteen-year lifespan, it has seen many creators and reached ten seasons (and counting), with five Hermits from Season 1 still playing today! Even though I could write many articles about this silly server and its many silly contributors, I am just establishing a preliminary basis for their contribution to the charity. 

The Hermitcraft Charity Event included many in-person events, such as “The Quiet Games,” a makeshift “Hot Ones” event after a popular internet show of the same name, Nerf wars, and many more, with the event lasting for ten hours on both Apr. 12 and Apr. 13. 

As of right now, the Hermits raised over 820,000 dollars on the main auction page, with over 100,000 dollars being from their auction. In this auction, they included many props used during the events and many custom-made art pieces based around various members, such as a custom vinyl, guitar, and even a custom Hermitcraft PC that closed at 4,200 dollars.

This is not the first Hermitcraft Charity Event, as the first one was in 2022. It was a huge success, especially due to Hermit GoodTimesWithScar, “Scar,” a Hermitcraft member, and his collaboration efforts with Gamers Outreach. At the end of the second day of Gamers for Giving, the Gamers Outreach founder Wigal announced that Scar would be joining the Board of Directors, which is a huge accomplishment! 

While this may focus on the Hermitcraft Charity Event and its contributions, this is not meant to discredit every other creator who contributed to the cause. The charity raised a grandiose amount of money that allowed the charity to expand the list of hospitals with GO Karts and other projects. Overall, the Gamers for Giving 2025 event was an outstanding feat that will benefit thousands of hospitalized children and those in their lives! 

If you would like to read more about this event, visit the official Gamers Outreach blog; if you would like to donate, you can also do so here!